[lit-ideas] Re: When Water Wasn't Wet
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 07:47:09 EDT
In a message dated 7/7/2009 5:37:17 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
palma@xxxxxxxx writes:
water is ice and viceversa (maybe someone
did not notice that a single element comes in different states, hence
glass is liquid, ice is water
----
Well, the problem is that _water_ is *not* a single element. With a
microscope you can see, the structure is:
H H
O
In symbols, H20
Water is the chemical compound of hydrogen and oxygen.
P. A. Stone will find that hydrogen is _otiose_ in that hydor, in Greek
_meant_ water.
"Hydrogenated water" (the most awful otiosity, lit. 'watery water') is:
H H H
0
etc.
In fact, Geary has synthesised what he calls
hyperhydrogenated water
H H H H
O
and uses it in combination with sulphuric acid to deal with his business.
Myself, I have played with more basic formulae:
H - 0
This I call 'minimal water'. It's more like steam, really, but for some
reason, _pink_. I call it a 'rare gas'.
When water gets 'solidified' ("ice") the formula, as Palma notes,
continues to be H20. Ditto when boiling -- precisely at 100 C -- but this
Geary
will say it's _arbitrary_.
So the problem is that there is no need to have the word 'water' at all,
since it fails to refer to what it SHOULD refer.
You see, Palma is confused as to whether to use 'water' to 'solid' and
'vaporous' forms of H20. Is this a mistake of Palma, or a mistake of the
English language?
In German, "Wasser" applies _only_ to its liquid form. Izze, for Ice, and
Staum for Steam.
In Italian, acqua (Latin aqua) applies only to its _watery_ state. It's
only with _water_ that Palma finds it controversial.
In Latin, 'gelum', gives Italian 'gelato', i.e. ice-cream. crema gelata,
iced cream. Does this mean that this contain _water_? No. So 'ice' and
'water' are independent. Anything can be _iced_ which is _not_ water (cfr.
Walt
Disney).
Vapour can be of any chemical element. It has been proved that in high
temperatures, _everything_ becomes 'steam', or as Anaximander preferred,
'air'.
I cannot see how motor is made of mineral, as Geary notes.
There are only FOUR elements, or essences, and the fifth essence,
quintessence, which Aristotelians deny, but Plato didn't.
Water is used in sex-ads to mean 'urine': "Water sports". While urine
contains a fair quantity of water, the colour (a secondary quality, granted)
makes it more properly definable as a 'golden shower'.
R. Strauss wrote an opera about the Golden Shower, which he, in his
typical refined way, called it "Danae".
Strauss's point was to write an opera about things that had been the
concentration of earlier Italian composers. In "Calisto", for example, the
tenor
plays "Orione", which is, really, "Urine" -- as he was created when the
Milk Came out of the Breast of the Milky Way in Hera, when feeding Heracles,
in the sky.
Dynamics of Fluids has always been a fascination of mine. Sperm, for
example, is not necessarily liquid. A naked sperm, a gymnosperm, is solid.
Heath Ledger's daughter has been called a 'spitting' image of his father.
Spit is perhaps the most perfect of liquids, since it is mainly water,
mixed with sodium and potasium. "Spitting image" is metonymic.
Before tea was introduced in England, what they did have is boiled water,
with a dash of milk (from a cow). In Mexico (the land of cofee), on the
other hand, they had their coffee 'solid' (munching seeds). G. Mikes makes fun
of this in _How to be an alien_.
Coca Cola is perhaps the most mysterious of drinks. Its formula contains a
very rare chemical element, whose sign goes by the symbol, "X", they won't
say.
Vodka, in Russian, means 'water'. And 'whisky' (or whiskie, in its Scots
version) is _also_ (holy) water.
Freshwater is drinkable, and sea-water too, but it may kill you. This is
due to the salt component, which can shrink your lungs, etc.
When it rains, it has to be in water-form (rain means 'water' in Eskimo,
since they use 'snow' for 'iced water'). The water is contained in the
clouds, which are mainly _water_, too, only solidified, but not heavy enough
--
that's why the clouds remain up, in the sky. It's when two clouds ('clouds
of water', really) collapse that we get rain. If the collapse is 'cold' the
rain is called 'snow' but it's really water. And then there's hail, which
is also water in little balls. A drizzle is a rain, really, but less heavy,
and again it's water.
The only metereological phenomenon of importance is really the falling of
water from the sky. This fulfils no important function. A gardener will
keep his gardener watered regardless. As my mother says, "Never look at the
sky before watering a garden: look at the soil: if it's dry, water it, since
you can't let a vegetal rely on a weather forecast".
While water does not destroy clothes, humans have decised pieces of
clothes only for contact with water. The contact with 'water-from-the-sky'
gives
a _RAIN-coat_. And the contact with water in its essentially liquid state
gives 'swimwear'. The Greeks did not have swim-wear. It was invented by a
Brit. (as was the raincoat).
In Spanish, umbrella is not called because it gives 'shade' (umbra) but
because it protects you from water, 'paragua', for the water. In French, they
are more specific, and call it 'for the water from the sky' paraplui.
Blood is an important body fluid, and it's mainly water, too -- mixed with
globules which are red or yellow (but called 'white').
Mercury is the only liquid metal, and can be poisoning, because people can
drink it easily as if it were water (but which isn't -- in fact, no
particle of H or O in mercury at all).
As Palma notes, glass is also liquid. The components of glass is sodium,
potasium, and carbon. (And in Burano, they add, hydrogen). When glass gets
solidified, that's because the liquid elements are turned into vapour, or
become a different element. Once a glass gets solidified, you can still
liquify it, in the microwave.
----
Finally, solid milk we call 'cheese'.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires.
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