Saturday, April 15, 2006

Lenticular

Last night Chelsey and I had a discussion about the definition of some words. She claimed she had seen authors using "sorites" to mean party. The correct term would be soirees. This all came up because we couldn't remember the name of an episode of Firefly. I remembered the next day that is was Shindig. Oh well. I looked up sorites as she spelled it and was confused even more because I was confusing sorites with sorties. Ah language.

I continued to flip though the dictionary amusing myself when I came upon the word lentil. Of course a lentil is a small pea like seed we eat. Close by in the dictionary, I spotted the word lenticular. Of course, lenticular, which I always associate with lenses actually means "shaped like a lentil". The word lens comes from the word lenticular. So, the lenses in my glasses and telescope eyepieces are actually named lenses because they resemble a lentil.

Weird. I never knew.

~Kirk

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