13 January 2010
Curiosity
I am once again back in class several evenings a week, this time in a course that particularly focuses on the particular demands of writing in French, and you have no idea how happy this makes me. Yesterday we had an introduction to two dozen grammatical texts, and got to explore the differences between the Petit Robert, the Petit Larousse and the Multidictionnaire.
I was thrilled. Soon I’m going to check on the price of the Multidictionnaire at the bookstore with my student discount, because apparently I can never have enough French dictionaries.
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For those who find Montreal’s desnowing procedure interesting, here’s where all that swiftly-removed snow ends up. (It’s no longer dumped on the frozen St. Lawrence, because the Olympic Stadium-sized quantities of snow plowed up each year also contain absurd amounts of gravel, salt, and sidewalk detritus that shouldn’t necessarily be sent floating merrily downstream.) Fun fact: last year, it took until September for all of it to melt.
This, my friends, is why the cold snap overtaking much of the southern U.S. hasn’t been getting much play in the news up here.
That is by far the best snow pile picture I’ve seen. I am slightly jealous, Todd is more jealous than I am, and Henry wishes he could go sledding down it.
I LOVE that there’s a word for snow removal (essentially de-snowing, as you said): déneigement. Awesome.
Oh! Oh! Oh! I bought sleds! We should go!
Given that things in French are almost always longer than the equivalent texts in English, I’m particularly amused whenever I find those pithy little French words for things that don’t exist in English. For example, I was flipping through the dictionary the other day and found cocaïnomanie (not to be confused with héroïnomanie), which doesn’t have a pithy equivalent.
One of my favorites, given its utility: frileux or frileuse, or sensitive to the cold.
And Katie, I’m glad that I can inspire such jealousy! I’m pretty sure that the dumping ground — located, for obvious reasons, far from downtown — is closed to the public to protect against just such Todd- and Henry-like impulses. I imagine that, come the middle of summer, it’s like a super-sized edition of the grungy gravel pile that you’d see on the way to Eagle Heights.