Hachiroku

The new Toyota sports car is called  Hachiroku, which means '86'.  To be introduced stateside in 2012m, we don't think it'll be called '86' here which is a bar slang for an undesirable customer,or one that must be evicted from the premises.


"This continues Toyota's sports car bloodline," Mr. Toyoda told reporters after driving a Hachiroku around the Fuji Speedway race track. "The 86 incorporates a sense of driving pleasure that we call 'doki-doki' or 'waku-waku,'" the Japanese for "heart-pounding" or "euphoric."

descriptivist vs prescriptivist

"academic linguists and other "descriptivist" grammarians dismiss the notion of grammatical "correctness" and insist that "rules" are wholly determined by usage."

chuppah

chuppah is a canopy under which a Jewish couple stand during their wedding ceremony.

Inaccrochable

Back in the 1920s Gertrude Stein was advising young Ernest Hemingway telling him that "You mustn't write anything that is inaccrochable".  (inaccrochable: a French expression meaning that his stories and his language were too raw, too revealing, too exposed for a refined society.)

Meanwhile

Richard Preston  was asked by the late Michael Crichton relatives to complete his unfinished novel titled Micro.


"Ms. Jordan (Michael Crichton assistant) line-edited the book to make sure the voice was consistent. At her suggestion, Mr. Preston dropped the word, "meanwhile," which Mr. Crichton hated."

flecheiros

"Mr. Possuelo's mission penetrated the vast Javari Valley Indigenous Land, 33,000 square miles of dense forest in the Upper Amazon where aerial reconnaissance showed at least 18 uncontacted tribes. Very little is understood about these people, including what ethnic groups they belong to and what languages they speak. One mysterious band is known by neighboring Indians as the flecheiros, Portuguese for "arrow people," for their rumored mastery of that weapon and their supposed ferocity."

El Buen Fin

"El Buen Fin, which translates as "the good weekend," will stretch over four days, starting Friday and ending Monday, which is a local holiday that commemorates the Mexican revolution. Retailers plan to offer discounts of as much as 70% on a variety of goods, from home appliances to automobiles, while also extending store hours."

enantiodromia

"Ask Mr. (Bill) Miller what he did for a living and he would tell you, "We think about thinking." A discussion with him might cover astrophysics and ant colonies, meteorology and baseball, the science of poker playing, and "enantiodromia," or the restoration of balance."