Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Kalevala]

I've always found the word bioavailable a useful/descriptive one in the context of food, which is where I came across it.

Personally I think the answer's just as interesting as the question. For example if you suffer from low calcium, as I did for a while, and you know that oxalates bind to calcium and greatly inhibit its absorption in your body, that's a pretty useful thing to be aware of. Oxalates are very high for example in spinach, but potatoes, soy, beets and others also contain them, so one can alter one's diet accordingly as it suits.
On top of which oxalates also bind to calcium in the urine and can form calcium oxalate kidney stones, which if you've had a problem with them, seems well worth knowing. There are plenty of other things like phytates in certain foods for example, that inhibit minerals like iron, calcium, zinc, and magnesium, so again potentially useful.
This info needless to say came to me over time via the internet, with scientific sources to back it up sometimes, and one to a certain extent takes it on trust. But if it's helping then all well and good.

As an aside, from what I understand anyway, is that in say spinach, it's better to eat it cooked--in terms of being able to absorb calcium.

K

[Iota]

As an aside, from what I understand anyway, is that in say spinach, it's better to eat it cooked--in terms of being able to absorb calcium.

K

Yes indeed, that's also true of a number of foods. And soaking pulses for instance removes a fair amount of their antinutrients, which inhibit absorption of vitamins and other nutrients.

[Cato]

Yes indeed, that's also true of a number of foods. And soaking pulses for instance removes a fair amount of their anti-nutrients, which inhibit absorption of vitamins and other nutrients.

That is a new use of the word "pulse" to me! 

It apparently is a subset of legumes.


From Wikipedia:

"...The term pulse, as used by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is reserved for legume crops harvested solely for the dry seed. This excludes green beans and green peas, which are considered vegetable crops. Also excluded are seeds that are mainly grown for oil extraction (oilseeds like soybeans and peanuts), and seeds which are used exclusively for sowing forage (clovers, alfalfa)...

I do not think most Americans would know the term.  Many thanks for the information!

[Karl Henning]

That is a new use of the word "pulse" to me! 

It apparently is a subset of legumes.


From Wikipedia:


I do not think most Americans would know the term.  Many thanks for the information!

Hence, my personal sobriquet for Boston: the Town of the Pulse.

[Cato]

Hence, my personal sobriquet for Boston: the Town of the Pulse.

Wow!  What a great joke!   

[Cato]

Concerning "orphaned negatives," which popped up today because of something which Mrs. Cato was writing.

She was describing someone and wanted to know whether to use "well-kept" or "well-kempt" for a neat and tidy appearance.

"Well-kept" sounded like a person being confined in the third-floor tower! 

(Voice of Boris Karloff: "Yeth, Mathter, the woman ith now well-kept in the tower of the north wing!" )    😇

There is, of course, unkempt to describe a sloppy person, the "kempt" part going back to the older English form of "combed."

So, in theory, "kempt" should be allowed, but the crappy dictionary provided by Mr. Gates refused to recognize the word. 

One source called "unkempt" an "orphaned negative," i.e. the negative has survived into modern English, but not the positive form.  Another article, however, had several recent examples of writers using "kempt" in their prose.

Anyway, consider e.g. consolate (disconsolate), gainly (ungainly), and sipid (insipid).

Here is a neat little article (should I call it kempt?) with a very short story (How I Met My Wife), which  uses the positive forms of common negatives:

https://stephenliddell.co.uk/2021/03/17/a-gruntled-look-at-orphan-negatives/

[Kalevala]

I'm dumbfounded how "unthaw" is actually listed in my computer's dictionary.  It's thaw vs. freeze regarding food (for example).

K

[Karl Henning]

"unthaw" is actually listed in my computer's dictionary

Flipping ridonculous!

[Cato]

I'm dumbfounded how "unthaw" is actually listed in my computer's dictionary.  It's thaw vs. freeze regarding food (for example).

K

Is it perhaps the past tense of "unsee" with a lisp?   

"Finally, after a decade of trying, I unthaw my parenth danthing the boogaloo!"   

[Iota]

Hence, my personal sobriquet for Boston: the Town of the Pulse.

Hence, my personal sobriquet for Boston: the Town of the Pulse.

Haha, Boston did indeed strike me as a somewhat 'Pulse-y' place. A lovely city too, I have fond memories of it.

[JBS]

I'm dumbfounded how "unthaw" is actually listed in my computer's dictionary.  It's thaw vs. freeze regarding food (for example).

K

It, and its derivatives, would be a good word choice in some circumstances.

"I arrived home so late I faced the choice of eating unthawed leftovers or going to bed hungry."

"Warm temperatures had not yet come, so the ground remained unthawed."

[Karl Henning]

"I arrived home so late I faced the choice of eating unthawed leftovers or going to bed hungry."

I'll about buy this. I need to thaw the food I've put up in the freezer.

"Warm temperatures had not yet come, so the ground remained unthawed."

I'm not seeing any advantage over frozen, here.

[Florestan]

Currently reading this:

The idea is interesting: a novel built around the last 17 years of Granados' life. The author says that he originally wanted to write a proper biography but the documentary material suggested him rather the novel form. All fine and well, but how can one trust the factual accuracy of someone who states, in a presentation of the main characters, that Paderewski was President of Poland? 

I came across this sentence:

Granados hears the chirping of birds in the trees along the boulevard that runs down in the middle of the street.

Question: what runs down in the middle of the street? The chirping, or the boulevard? Either way, it makes no sense at all. 

[ritter]

Currently reading this:

I came across this sentence:

Granados hears the chirping of birds in the trees along the boulevard that runs down in the middle of the street.

Question: what runs down in the middle of the street? The chirping, or the boulevard? Either way, it makes no sense at all. 

The author was obviously referring to the central part of the boulevard (a boulevard being a wide street with trees and, frequently, with a pedestrian section along the middle). Your post made me look up whether there is a specific word for that central section. The Spanish Royal Academy gives "camellón", but the term is only used in the Domincan Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and Panama, and aparently there is no word for this on this shore of the Atlantic. Curiious, no? I don't know how it's in English (because "sidewalk" wouldn't do, it not being on the sides but in the middle).

But, yes, the author here got himself into a silly cul-de-sac that could have easliy been avoided.

EDIT: Looking at the dictionary of the RAE more closely, the word "bulevar" is used (by extension, I presume) to name the central of a boulevard (spelled "bulevar" in Spanish). Bu the author was not translating form Spanish, was he?

[Florestan]

The author was obviously referring to the central part of the boulevard (a boulevard being a wide street with trees and, frequently, with a pedestrian section along the middle).

Ah, now I see. Well, I know perfectly well what a boulevard is. It seems that this John W. Milton guy doesn't. 

the author here got himself into a silly cul-de-sac that could have easliy been avoided.

Indeed.

Granados hears the chirping of birds in the trees that line up along the middle of the boulevard.

Maybe that line up could even be dropped altogether.

[Florestan]

EDIT: Looking at the dictionary of the RAE more closely, the word "bulevar" is used (by extension, I presume) to name the central of a boulevard (spelled "bulevar" in Spanish). Bu the author was not translating form Spanish, was he?

No.

In Romanian the term for boulevard is bulevard. There is no term for the central pedestrian section for the simple reason that Romanian boulevards don't have such a section, only sidewalks (the term for them being trotuar, pl. trotuare --- which is the Romanian phonetic spelling of the French trottoir).

[Wanderer]

The author was obviously referring to the central part of the boulevard (a boulevard being a wide street with trees and, frequently, with a pedestrian section along the middle). Your post made me look up whether there is a specific word for that central section. The Spanish Royal Academy gives "camellón", but the term is only used in the Domincan Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and Panama, and aparently there is no word for this on this shore of the Atlantic. Curiious, no? I don't know how it's in English (because "sidewalk" wouldn't do, it not being on the sides but in the middle).

But, yes, the author here got himself into a silly cul-de-sac that could have easliy been avoided.

EDIT: Looking at the dictionary of the RAE more closely, the word "bulevar" is used (by extension, I presume) to name the central of a boulevard (spelled "bulevar" in Spanish). Bu the author was not translating form Spanish, was he?

In Greek this section is called a νησίδα (nidída - "islet"). If there's more than one (e.g. a two-direction highway with two side streets would have 3 νησίδες), they're called the central, right and left "islets" respectively.

[Mandryka]

What I imagine with this sentence is a long street, and somewhere in the middle it becomes wider and tree-lined. The whole street, in this case, is not a boulevard. Maybe other parts are industrial, or inaccessible to pedestrians.

"In the middle" here just means not at the beginning and not at the end.

[Wanderer]

...spelling of the French trottoir.

This reminds me, in a particularly hilarious Greek comedy film from the sixties, trottoir (mentioned in passing as a reference to some ladies qui font le trottoir) is comedically misspelled "trutruár".

[Florestan]

This reminds me, in a particularly hilarious Greek comedy film from the sixties, trottoir (mentioned in passing as a reference to some ladies qui font le trottoir) is comedically misspelled "trutruár".

In Romanian a face trotuarul is the exact translation of the French faire le trottoir --- and the reference would be to some ladies care fac trotuarul (also an exact translation from the French).