Factoids
On graduation, Canadian engineers receive a stainless steel ring to be worn on the pinky of the working hand.
The word “pedigree” is derived from the French “pied de grue” (no relation): foot of the crane.
What on earth does a crane’s foot have to do with genealogy? Well, descendants in a pedigree are indicated with something like this /|\, branching out from the names of their parents. That mark does somewhat resemble the foot of a crane.
Bakku-shan is apparently Japanese for “a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.” The Japanese Google image search for it yields mostly pictures of pets, though, leading me to suspect it’s applied to anything facing away from you that’s considered cute.
Bakku-shan--the pedigree of that word's pretty lame; see:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002500.html
Posted by shadowsmark on November 12 2005 04:10
That rebuttal is chiefly complaining that "bakku-shan" is poor evidence that Japanese is wackier than English. Since no one was claiming that, it seems an odd point to insist on.
Posted by Zed on November 12 2005 11:41