Another day, another word

[shewhomust]

I was beginning to suspect the Guardian of a stealth campaign to increase my vocabulary: words I do not recognise have been cropping up, unexplained. On Saturday, we had 'pancheon'; on Monday it was 'fulvic'.

This was in a 'Shortcuts' piece about ridiculous fads in the marketing of water (article not currently online: a search of the Guardian website tries to fob me off with an eccentric Shetlander and his republic of Forvik). There is, apparently, something called 'black water', a variety of mineral water which "gets its colour from fulvic minerals, for which there are broad health claims". This doesn't make me think that the water has any actual health benefits, but does make me wonder what fulvic minerals might be.

Chambers doesn't know. It offers me 'fulvous' and 'fulvid', both of which describe a tawny yellow - which I hadn't met in English, but recognise as the French 'fauve', tawny like a big cat, and hence a wild animal. So that's a Word of the Day.

The internet, on the other hand, is full of people who want to tell me about fulvic acid, and fulvic minerals, but only because they all want to sell me their dubious health products. (Oh, and it's mentioned in passing in a Wikipedia piece about 'humic acids', a term which describes rather than defines a group of components of soil).

Guardian, are you telling me that this water is black because it's muddy?

Comments

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

They steal all their wordy ideas from not only Mollberg Speak but also http://theboringclub.livejournal.com/170006.html, that's what! Muddy waters indeed, when there is wine. Or even beer. I do like it "ambrée" which only goes to prove my Tigresse nature and my health keeps improving with every sip. Feel free to tell the Guardian! Must now read about the eccentric Shetlander, I hope he keeps carnivorous sheep. Now that I have, I want to marry him, I think. Seems such gorgeous fun. I'm used to a limited budget and eccentric behaviour, in fact, I've been known to encourage it but he's my man alright. So much for Scotsmen with bad hairdoes! He should take advantage of the situation and invade Hans Island onboard his Viking Rowing Boat (converted). Then we'll have a Party.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Those words are begging for imaginative definitions, imo.

Pancheon: a frying pan used as a truncheon.

Fulvic: tiger yellow

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I like your definition of 'pancheon' (Tiffany Aching's weapon of choice), and also anef's suggestion (http://shewhomust.livejournal.com/495164.html?thread=2432060#t2432060): that it's a cart horse, a cross between a Suffolk Punch and a Percheron.

On 'fulvid', though, you are simply thinking, as I was, of 'fulvous', which really does mean that!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Ah! That is right! (IT's so hot here that brains are not braining.)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

My first thought was that 'fulvic' meant something akin to mineral water, but then maybe that's 'volvic'.

Yeah. It is.

I am apparently well-programmed.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

And also a village in France, presumably where thhe water comes from - and it's all volcanic, which makes sense...

[sovay]

On Saturday, we had 'pancheon'; on Monday it was 'fulvic'.

"Fulvic" sounds like an adjective Tanith Lee would have used.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Hm, another reference to Tanith Lee (not Lorelei whom I adore). Now I may have to read her.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Yes. Although I might just be thinking of 'frumious' (like the bandersnatch).

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

I just found this expression for you mother liquors (the insoluble muds remaining after evaporation of the dissolved salts) from this article: http://www.sel-salies-de-bearn.com/en/le-sel-de-salies-de-bearn/histoire/

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Million-year-old salt! My fish and chips are not worthy to be sprinkled with it.