Somusing

Eine Auswahl von Schlagzeilen, die ich heute, den 20. Dezember 2021, in den Nachrichten vom Spiegel (unter www.spiegel.de) gelesen habe: Chile hat jetzt einen »woken« Präsidenten Coronahotspot in Thüringen Wer sind die heimlichen Impf-Champions? Chinesische Influencerin muss 181 Millionen Euro Strafe zahlen Der Grinch der Computersicherheit Debatte über neuen Lockdown Chipmangel in der Industrie Update der Corona-Warn-App: So können Sie Ihre Zertifikate beim Online-Ticketkauf prüfen lassen Games-Empfehlungen: Das sind die Shooter-Highlights des Jahres True-Wireless-Headsets im Test: Klingt gut, oder? Reader der Tafelrunde Bester Sound für die Ohren: Kabellose Gaming Headsets So muss es auch einige Beobachter der englischen Sprache in den Jahren von etwa 1100-1300 getroffen haben, als französische Wörter sich überall und auf Dauer einschleichten!

I came across the term aqua regia while reading, and looked it up. Wikipedia says the term is from Latin for “royal water”, and is also known as aqua regis (Latin, “king’s water”). In modern chemistry it’s known as nitro-hydrochloric acid. It got its name “because it can dissolve the noble metals gold and platinum.” A great story is related there: When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. Af...

Here are some more examples of mind-tickling Cyrillic. This top word is a really common thing to see in the city: apteka (meaning apothecary = pharmacy), written аптека in block Cyrillic but looking funny as аптека in script (that will vary depending on which Cyrillic fonts you have installed): This bag of spaghetti on the left is my favorite yet, as block спагети becomes спагети in script, except chances are that your font won't show the middle "g" sound like the "r" it appears to be here, since that is yet another variation used in Bulgaria: Now look above at the Billa label on the right. That reads ябълки голд. делишъс = literally yabulki (apples) gold. delishus. Hehe. I'll finish with a store I saw called "Mira", like our daughter's name: