Glovesim

When I was a graduate student in Israel (*), I really managed to get a sense of how languages might evolve, because Hebrew, before being adopted as the official language of Israel, was largely not really spoken. Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, and Sephardics spoke Ladino, or the language the Jews in Arab countries (Morocco, Yemen and so on) spoke, the name of which I don't know, but which is analogous. 

(* No, graduate school was all in English, my Hebrew would not have been up to the task, and was limited to what I call "shop Hebrew": "I need two metres of the blue fabric", "Please give me half a kilo of tomatoes", "Where is the soap?" - that sort of thing. I couldn't follow the news on the radio, or too many actual conversations, let alone Computer Science Hebrew).

The language needed modernising to cope with the current world, so words for computers (developed from the root for "work"), chemistry ("khemia", which sounds a lot like the English word) and other concepts not needed in older Hebrew were incorporated into the language.

Like other langauges, foreign words were adopted as is too. French has "le week-end" (I think it's masculine), "la tee-shirt" (I think it's feminine), so there's no reason why Hebrew should not do the same. 

I'm not sure how French deals with its plurals, but Hebrew amusingly sticks to its own grammar rules for plurals: use suffixes of "im" and "ot" for masculine and feminine words respectively, hence "chipsim", which is funny because "chips" is already a plural, and doesn't actually need the "im", but perhaps they view it as a singular collective noun, or perhaps they weren't thinking, or they didn't care, or (I'd like to think) someone had a sense of humour.

Hence "glovesim", not that it's necessary, as there is a Hebrew word for gloves (something that translates to "hand-socks" or "hand-shoes" if I'm not mistaken), but I'm taken with my absurdity anyway.

Gloves fit well, I like the colour, the gauge is suitable, the design pleasing, but they were definitely an exercise in 20-20 hindsight. I really MUST remember to write down what I do for the first glove (or sock or sleeve) so that the second one does not need quite so much ripping and redoing.

You've heard it here before, but it bears repeating, if only to remind myself: sometimes I'm not all that bright.

On the other hand, I did not run out of yarn.

In other news, I was able to grant myself peace of mind with respect to the Architectural Rib Sweater, which had taken a back seat to the stupid gloves, but which was causing my Standard Worry which goes like this: "What if I run out of yarn?"

I had more Beast, I had already spun the silk years ago, and now I have what is probably close to twelve ounces of extra yarn for the cuffs, which I will no doubt not need and so use (in combination with another yarn) for another project, which will once again lead to my Standard Worry, but that's life, and at least I'm true to form so we know the brain hasn't started to develop holes just yet.