It never ceases to amaze me how thick I can be linguistically. I mean I'm OK with English, but I am just dumb as toast when it comes to dealing with more than one language, or recognizing cross-language similarities. Sad, really, considering where I hang my hat.
For example today I was sitting around, taking a break from trying to avoid doing my taxes, and my mind wandered itself all the way over to the U-nited States: I started thinking about cole slaw (also referred to as cabbage salad in some places, but the two can also be very different things). After a few moments appreciating the technical points of putting together a good cole slaw, I turned my gigantic, supercomputer-like mind towards deriving the provenance of the term cole slaw. I looked out at the grey Amsterdam skies, put my feet up on the arm of the couch, and let the ruminating begin. Who was this Cole character? A wealthy cabbage baron from Savannah? A Confederate general. Or a BBQ pitmaster. Someone's mother. We don't know.
Well, I didn't know. So I checked the Google Wire, and...let me just say for you non-Dutch speakers out there that the word for cabbage in Dutch is kool (pronounced like "coal", or, well..."cole") and the word for salad is sla. Duh.
The cole slaw reverie resulted in a dinner that sounded great but was let down by some really insipid salmon: kind of pale and watery and tasteless...is this what farm-raised salmon is tasting like these days? Blecch. Also, my cole slaw didn't have time to soften up. Anyway, BBQ salmon plus corn w/chipotle butter and underage buttermilk cole slaw was what it was. Kool sla.
So, also, we now know that, in the video, one of Kim Gordon's go-go dancers is wearing a belt that says "cabbage".
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