articles of antagonism

One of the "perks" of being an American living in Iceland is that any time an American media outlet does a feature on Iceland, I get about 63 copies of it. The New York Times, for example, seems to do a piece on Iceland about, oh, every Sunday. As soon as the paper hits the streets, my inbox fills up with links to the article, followed by a hardcopy snailmail clipping from E's mom a few weeks later. I appreciate the thought, but it's not like these articles contain any magic new tips that I don't know from living here. And their often-patronizing tone is downright annoying.

For you Bostonian readers, the Hub equivalent would be, "When in Boston, be sure to visit Faneuil Hall. All the cool people be there. It's an undiscovered paradise. Bostonians are gruff, but they sure are good-hearted people underneath. Be sure to ask them about the 'Red Sox', their local team. They like that."

So, if you have the urge to send me a link to an Iceland-themed article, give it a once-over first. If it contains any reference to the "legendary" Blue Lagoon, chances are I'm not interested.

Today's word parallel is stóll, which means "chair" in Icelandic. In English, it's equivalent to stool. Turns out the English word for "chair" used to be stool, as well. But then the French word "chair" came in in the 1200s and everyone thought it was so fancy and new that stool went downmarket and eventually even came to mean poop.