Ink Pen by Phil Dunlap for November 26, 2023
November 25, 2023
November 27, 2023
Transcript:
ralston: It seems like every culture has a toast that means "to your health".... salud, sante, slainte, l'chaim...say, what's the norse toast, tyr? tyr: we say "skoal!!" ralston: And does that mean "health"? tyr: no, it means "skull", 'cause we drink out of our enemies' skulls. ralston: Of course you do...
Skål means bowl, but they probably weren’t adverse to fashioning them from enemy skulls. No language in the world has nearly as many words as English. A Hebrew word meaning ‘something dug’ can be a well, a cistern, or a grave. Context is everything. OTOH the Hebrew has different words for beer and wine, but Bible translators have never thought beer was a religious drink and make them both wine. Oh, and it is urban legend that Eskimos have, like, 57 words for snow.