I ought to be in bed

[conuly]

and I'm going just now, but I have to share two words I learned just now: kolk and riprap. I probably will never have a chance to say "kolk" again, but, as I live in a city of islands it is very possible for me to take walks that allow me to casually walk by riprap and refer to it as such! I actually do this already, except I've never had a specialized word for those rocks before!

...occasionally, I have cause to identify very strongly with Tiffany Aching.

There was a lot of mist around, but a few stars were visible overhead and there was a gibbous moon in the sky. Tiffany knew it was gibbous because she’d read in the Almanack that gibbous meant what the moon looked like when it was just a bit fatter than half full, and so she made a point of paying attention to it around those times just so that she could say to herself: “Ah, I see the moon’s very gibbous tonight....”

It’s possible that this tells you more about Tiffany than she would want you to know.

Anyway, riprap is now my second favorite rock related word, immediately after "chossy" but before "scree".

Comments

[redbird]

Kolk reminds me of a Category 6 blog post I just read, on the Old River Control Structure, specifically the part about how the structure was damaged in flooding in 1973.

(That post says it is part 1 of a 3-part series on "the history and importance of the Old River Control Structure," the massive piece of engineering that is keeping the Mississippi in its current riverbed past Baton Rouge and New Orleans.)

[conuly]

Ah, I found these words because I was just reading how the levee system of controlling the Mississippi was probably, in retrospect, a really bad idea.