Today’s word: isthmus.

A narrow land bridge connecting two larger bodies of land.

I was thinking about my visit to Gibralter, if you must know.

or, rather, Term of the Day:

Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia: Pain in the forehead and face caused by rapid cooling and rewarming of the blood vessels of the palate, eg, by  quickly eating something cold, like ice cream.

 This week’s Israeli government slang verb: le’kandel.

“to run around, be busy, attend lots of meetings, but not actually do anything”

The verb root is derived from the name Condoleezza…

Actually, I’ve always liked her since seeing her photographed in a really professional maternity business suit.

Things I packed today:

• cufflings (what my son uses to fasten his French cuffs)
• banging suit (what my daughter wears to the beach)
• o-ganki des (a toddler’s blankie)
• twenty white shirts, folded with great care and tension (note to self: make appointment for massage upon arrival)
• an entire rainbow of Crocs (red, brown, purple, green, pink, blue, white, and black)

Nine people. Eleven days. There’s very little floor visible in this house tonight. (Tread lightly on the duffle bags, please.)

From an event invitation received today: “the Israeli Silicon Wadi”.

Seen on a conference’s promotional website:

“[This event]… is also a voluble* occasion to exchange personal experiences gained in the sector…”

Gee, it must be a noisy event. Isn’t it a great image, though? Hundreds of people all volubly sharing their experiences with one another? Of course, they meant valuable.

*Voluble: marked by a ready flow of speech; “she is an extremely voluble young woman who engages in soliloquies not conversations.”

Today’s word: upcycle.

Upcycling is the practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value. (Wikipedia)

Seen in the context of some new trials being done in manufacturing upcycled cell phones.

Today’s word: zeptoliter.

A zeptoliter is a sextillionth of a liter, or one-thousandth of an attoliter. But you knew that.

One country’s bar association has decided to forbid its members from working with attorneys from a second country (for political reasons). A law firm in the second country received a letter from their colleagues in the first country, explaining that they were severing business ties, having been advised by their bar association that “lawyers doing business with [second country] will be dismembered.” Yikes. They meant disbarred (from membership). I hope.

An absolutely true story, by the way, heard first-hand.

Read in Harold Nicolson Diaries & Letters 1939-45:

Nether Wallop: An RAF station on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border.

England never ceases to entertain with its place names. But Nether Wallop? Sounds like something I’d threaten my kids with.

It turns out that there are three Wallop villages alongside the Wallop Brook: Over, Middle and Nether Wallop (wallops of increasing intensity, I guess). Nether Wallop was the site used for filming a BBC television adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series in the 1980s.