Giving things names in the West and in China
By Larry Romanoff for PRAVDA,
December 03, 2021
In most parts of Northern
nations like Canada or Russia, we have one word for snow: “snow”. If we want to
be really precise, we will distinguish between dry snow and wet snow because
wet snow is heavy and shoveling it from your driveway is one of the more popular
methods of inviting a heart attack. But in the world’s far North the native
Inuit people have more than 30 words for snow because they live with it for
most of the year and minor differences in snow characteristics can greatly
affect hunting and survival. We have names for things that are important to us.
For example, one of the
most important categories of things in North America is alcoholic drinks. The
basic categories are beer, wine, and spirits (which are distilled), and many
products not fitting easily into these categories.
