What P.-C. said.

Shir, can your friends with Women in Black help any?

How come florescent lights look red for a few minutes after I come in from the sun?

Florescent lights generally have a green hue to them. I think red and green are opposite on the color wheel. I'm guessing it has something to do with iris clamped down from daylight, and perception over compensating. Or something along those lines. But I'm a sound guy. So I might be a bit off

I'm not that close with anyone on WiB, omnis. But I'm gonna send some more emails tomorrow. People tend to respond better to personal addressed emails than to a tweet.

Not meant to distract from Shir's awesomeness (which she totally is, awesome I mean), but I bring you this [link]

Mostly because I thought it was over here that someone was complaining about weak fingernails.

As for the second remark... well, part of me wants to agree. I don't know if it's because it's my first language, but I feel Hebrew differently. Something in it, in there. It's in my bones, the meaning of the words, and their origins. I can tell what's Aramic and what's from Chazal and what's from the Bible.

I totally understand this. It's why I love Hebrew - it's built in a way that retains the original meaning of words and the associations so that every word has a richness and history that I don't find so much in English. I don't really think about the etymologies of "cow" versus "beef" although I know there's a story there, but with Hebrew there's much more of a sense of how things are connected and how they've been used before.

Side note for the non-Hebrew speaking (the pedant tag REALLY never closes!) - Shir can correct me if I'm wrong, but I learned about a funny story, give me a minute to explain.

Hebrew is built on "roots" - usually three-letter foundations that are vocalized or formatted in different ways to give different meanings. So: to write, to correspond, to dictate, a writer (person), a typewriter, etc. are all based on the same three consonants. When the Hebrew language was revived (end of the 19th c.) Eliezer Ben Yehuda tried to use that root system to develop words that hadn't been needed before - and others did likewise when the state was established and the language grew. Someone tried to make a Hebrew word for archaeologist based on the root for "to reveal". Today, an archaeologist is a "archaeolog" in Hebrew and the root-word derived to fill that niche is used for "stripper". Not what old Ben Yehuda had in mind!

Likewise the root-word developed for "telephone" - "sach-rechok" had no chance against the much-easier to pronounce "telefon". Israelis are much less uptight about that sort of thing than the French.

Now I'll shut off the computer and go get ready for Shabbat. Have a good weekend, all.

Hebrew is built on "roots" - usually three-letter foundations that are vocalized or formatted in different ways to give different meanings.

This pops up very occasionally in English too, probably the result of a proto-semitic language bumping up against a proto-european language at some point in the distant past. (Google is totally failing to provide me with any actual examples, of course, and my History of Human Language lecture is on my computer at home. Blast.)

::bats eyelashes at the language geeking::

Ooh, language geeking is fun! :)

Everyone likes a cunning linguist.

Today, an archaeologist is a "archaeolog" in Hebrew and the root-word derived to fill that niche is used for "stripper".

Ha, I had no idea "hasfan" was suggested as a word for archaeologist!

Likewise the root-word developed for "telephone" - "sach-rechok" had no chance against the much-easier to pronounce "telefon". Israelis are much less uptight about that sort of thing than the French.

OMG. The ckh sound that French sometimes makes you pronounce? And to think that people are complaining about "ch" in Hebrew! I need to have a sip of water after speaking 2 sentences with that ckh sound in French, dammit.

This pops up very occasionally in English too, probably the result of a proto-semitic language bumping up against a proto-european language at some point in the distant past. (Google is totally failing to provide me with any actual examples, of course, and my History of Human Language lecture is on my computer at home. Blast.)

Go to Euskara. If the theory is right, then it should have Semitic roots (unless that happened after the Indo-and what's currently-European invasion).

One of the great stories in Hebrew and roots is about the words for choir (makhela) and orchestra (tizmoret). There was a misunderstanding about which word should be used for which term, and to this day, tizmoret, which means "a group of singers", is used for "a group of players".

Shabat Shalom, Shari!