rime, language, and direction

There's a thick layer of fog obscuring the base of the mountains this morning, leaving only the ridges exposed.

If you haven't been here before, you should know there are no peaks here: all the mountains here have been dulled by time and exposure. And glaciers, usually.

But this morning's fog also reached us far into the valley, leaving every car with a hard candy shell, including mine, as I commented to my grand-boss on the walk in from the parking lot. He laughed and theorized that when I went to try it, my tongue stuck to the windshield.

He's not feeling so hot, but he's good to riff with even when he's under the weather. And his under the weather is following my under the weather, and I really I hope I didn't pass what I had around the office.

There's construction in the lot next door to home, as well as on my way to work. All of their equipment was frosted with rime as well.

Yes, I just used "rime" in a sentence. And I did it without thinking about it, though it occurred to me to look it up afterwards, since it does sound like a made-up word. But no, according to Merriam-Webster's (my free online dictionary of choice since going to the Oxford English Dictionary takes about four extra steps, since it requires me to sign into my Penn State library account), it's "frost," or "an accumulation of granular ice tufts on the windward sides of exposed objects that is formed from supercooled fog or cloud and built out directly against the wind," and comes from Old English hrIm; akin to Old Norse hrIm, which explains why I probably like the word so much to begin with. Though the OED is a tad more precise: "Hoar-frost; frozen mist. a chill mist or fog," cautioning that "in scientific use rime is now distinguished from hoar-frost," and traces its usage from 725, though most of its examples are from the 1500s.

Today's etymology lesson brought to you by Anne's brain having been kicked into high gear.

Where I was originally going with this was that passing the construction (covered with rime, no less), this is the second day I've seen the Amish worker there: working in shirtsleeves but no coat, with his suspenders and straw hat.

More than once during my frequent stops to Amish open-air markets of their produce, baking, and preserving over the last few years, I've wished I learned German. Not just because I'm curious about what they say about us, though I'm sure there's a little of that: they do consider us outsiders, calling us "the English." One of the professors in the English department grew up Mennonite and will tell similar stories if asked. But that's not so much my concern--I kind of want to put them at ease as much as I can. They seem awkward with their customers (and I know this is a generalization), especially the older and the very young: strangely, the older teens seem most comfortable with their position and how to deal with the public, from what I've seen thus far. Though I suppose it's one family that I see most often, and it could just be them.

Given that I'm struggling to retain Danish, though, I'm not so sure learning German would've worked. When I was in Denmark, I took French. And boy, was that a doozy. I had already had a year of French, and this was the class's first year with it, so I was in essence going back a year, though language classes over there strike me as much more stringent than in the U.S.

In class one day early on, when I was still learning Danish, the African-born (Francophone) teacher turned to me and in English, asked me to translate a word into French. I answered immediately with the word in Danish, not realizing I had done so until I was told.

I don't want to say that's proof for sticking to one language at a time, but it does strike me as telling for me and how I learn languages, at least. Though I suppose it's different for dead languages: I don't think the same problem would have occurred if I'd been learning Old English at the time, and it didn't occur so much with Latin (which was another course taken at the time, I might add).

My grandboss has "Quo Vadimus" as a sign on his door, which means "Where are we going?" I rather wish I remembered enough Latin to be able to conjugate that into "Where have we been?" His is a noble sentiment, though I'd also argue that parts of this office could stand to learn from their mistakes (including myself).

And with that, off to a meeting.