Terms of Endearments

It’s 2:04 am and my mind is, as always, wandering. This time my train of thoughts in on the track of ‘terms of endearments’ and how they differ in different cultures/languages. 

For example, one pet name the Turks use for their children is ‘my little lamb’ (Kuzum); now imagine an Iranian parent calling their son/daughter ‘gosfand’!!   

Or similarly, the English pet name ‘puppy’; which in Farsi would be ‘toleh sagh!’ 

Okay, now I wondering why us Iranians use animal terms as insults. I mean if in English you tell a guy, ‘you dog, you!”; it is not necessarily a bad thing (cough); BUT in Farsi, it’s an insult. All animal names are insults- lamb, dog, puppy, calf, cow, donkey (though this one is pretty much international. I beginning to feel sorry for donkeys; no one respects donkeys)

Now one that us Iranians and Arabs use, is ‘my liver’ (jigar’am)…which I often wondered WHY???!! Why the liver? Seriously? The liver??!!

UPDATE: I just googled functions of the liver, and got this:

• production of bile, which helps carry away waste and break down fats in the small intestine during digestion

• production of certain proteins for blood plasma

• production of cholesterol and special proteins to help carry fats through the body

• conversion of excess glucose into glycogen for storage (This glycogen can later be converted back to glucose for energy.)

• regulation of blood levels of amino acids, which form the building blocks of proteins

• processing of hemoglobin for use of its iron content (The liver stores iron.)

• conversion of poisonous ammonia to urea (Urea is one of the end products of protein metabolism that is excreted in the urine.)

• clearing the blood of drugs and other poisonous substances

• regulating blood clotting

• resisting infections by producing immune factors and removing bacteria from the blood stream

 

So, again, WHY?????

The Monkey Experiment: The Habit Virus

Dunno why my energy level has taken a steep dive into a never-ending abyss…I try to avoid the ‘term’ hate’ but honestly there’s no better word I can use here, but this year I simply HATE winter. I miss that scotching big yellow ball in Kuwait’s skies. I haven’t been bathed by its rays in over 2 months!!! I so want Kuwait’s sun back.

Anyhoo, until my source of energy comes out of hiding from behind these cold clouds, I will continue to plagiarize and only copy and paste stuff off the net for my posts…here’s a story that says a lot about _____________________ (fill in the blank).

Source: ‘The NLP Pocketbook’ by Gillian Burn

PS. Click on the picture if you are having problems reading the small, blurry, eye straining font.

UPDATE: I found a text version of the Monkey Story:

In a research study, five monkeys were placed in a cage with a ladder leading to a bunch of ripe bananas. One monkey headed towards the bananas, but hidden at the top of the ladder was a water spray which showered water over the monkey. So it abandoned the attempt. Another monkey tried; it too was sprayed with water. Each monkey in turn tried, but each was doused and eventually gave up. The researchers turned off the water spray and removed one monkey from the cage, replacing it with a new one. The new monkey saw the bananas and immediately tried to climb the ladder. However, to its horror, the other monkeys leapt up and stopped it.

Over time the researchers removed and replaced all the original monkeys. Every time a newcomer approached the ladder the other monkeys stopped it from climbing up. None of the remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed, but still no monkey approached the ladder to reach the bananas. As far as they knew that was the way it had always been done, and so the habit was formed.

UPDATE 2: Another post with a video of the monkey experiment: http://blog.stsaint.com/philosophy/2010/05/5-monkeys-experiment/