Words November 2024 Week 3

We wore warm clothes. (It was a chilly day.)

We asked them to grill the fish over charcoal. (They caught some rainbow trout.)

I aired out our futons. (“Dry the futons” sounds like you washed them in a washing machine.)

It was hard to hear each other. (They were sitting too close to the band on stage.)

The hill is very steep. (The word “slope” is ok, but since the road was long and steep, it sounds better to say “hill.”)

An outlander is a foreigner, outsider or stranger. (In the TV drama, a WWII military nurse in Scotland, found herself transported back in time to 1743.)

In 1941, George de Mestral noticed that the tiny hooks of the cockleburs were stuck on his pants and in his dog's fur. (He studied the cockleburs and invented “Velcro” (MAGICTAPE™ has become a synonym of the hook & loop fasteners but it is a registered trademark of Kuraray Co., Ltd.)

The cocklebur plant is in the same family as burdock or “gobo” in Japanese. (Gobo is a popular edible root in Japan.)

Originally, the Romans had an eight-day week until 321 AD when it was changed to seven days. (When they changed to the seven-day week, Sunday was the first day and it is also the first day in the Christian and Jewish religions.)

According to the international standard ISO, Monday is considered the first day of the week. (In European countries and China, Monday is the first day of the week.)

I bought pot sticker for dinner. (The actual translation for the Chinese name for gyoza is “pot stickers.”)

I breathed in secondhand smoke. (Someone was smoking in the hallway and the smoke went into the room where she ws performing on stage.)

What is the difference between “I knew” and “I learned.” (Please tell me.)

We all have 20-20 hindsight. (We all know what we should have done after we did it.)

They were legally married last year but the wedding ceremony was held recently. (COVID prevented many large ceremonies.)

We held a ceremony to put (interred) the urn containing the cremated ashes into the tomb. (This is called the interment ceremony.)

I’m becoming more forgetful. (It is a sign of aging.)

Tokyo has 23 wards, 26 cities, 5 towns, 8 villages, and two island groups. (The special districts or precincts of Tokyo are called wards.)

They had a blind taste of the gyoza. (The people tasted the gyoza without knowing where they were made.)

According to legend, pot stickers go back to around 1000 AD. (A chef was boiling dumplings and when the water evaporated, the dumplings stuck to the wok. The Chinese name for gyoza is “quotie” with “quo” meaning “wok” (pot) and “tie” meaning “stuck.”)