Re: Depressing vocabulary for mid-June

Kou/Sally Caves wrote:


> > >This is obviously very idiomatic: I know that a cold in Japanese is
> 'kaze' --
> > >wind -- but I don't off-hand remember the idioms for how one acquires
> one.
> > >Or how one happens.
>
> What an entirely cool concept.  Cold as "wind."  In Teonaht, a cold is
> "watery head."  The medievals, and later cultures in Europe, saw disease
> as
> a miasma.  A fog creeping up on you.
Hmm, that explains a puzzling but very commonly heard Indonesian complaint
(maybe)-- "masuk angin" lit., "enter/coming-in wind".  It seems to be
occasioned by exposure to wind coming in thru windows, and particularly in
cars and buses.  Many of the older generation, esp. peasants and working
people, aren't accustomed to riding in cars, consequently they tend to get
car-sick, or feel queasy. But most cars and buses are not air-conditioned,
so people want windows open. Invariably some old granny asks that they be
closed, supaya tidak masuk angin, lit, so that the wind won't come in,
sensible enough.  But "masuk angin" is also an ailment, apparently, whose
sovereign remedy is Vick's Vap-o-rub applied to the temples. You can imagine
the affect _that_ has in a hot, closed carriage.

 Here's just a few items I clipped
> from the taxonomy I've been working on.  This falls under
> "medicine"--hypochondriac that I am:
(snip a good list; I have some but by no means all of these in Kash.
Apparently I'm insufficiently hypochondriac :-))....back to the to-do list.)

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