2024年2月10日星期六

neurotic, catheter, big and drafty, drafty morgue, mortuary, itemizing, sopping season, dinghy sank off

This is the story of two athletic people who formed an attachment while cycling and made a home together near the coast of Maine. They built a small, energy-efficient house northwest of Camden that is comfortable throughout the year: in frigid season, sopping season, insect season. It’s got it.

Although the standard property available in coastal Maine is an old farmhouse, the couple didn’t want anything big and drafty that needed constant maintenance. Instead, they bought a 26-acre forested lot near a small lake and a string of hills, clearing two acres for a house and a barn, with the idea of turning the area back into pasture.

Al Jazeera English

At least 31 refugees and migrants have died seeking to cross the English Channel from France to England when their dinghy sank off the northern coast of Calais.

ALJAZEERA.COM

‘Tragedy’: Dozens of refugees, migrants die in English Channel

Divers recover a part of the A330's tail, bearing the Air France logo

Brazilian officials say they have recovered 24 bodies from the mysterious Air France crash over the Atlantic last week. A special morgue has been set up to carry out DNA tests and identify the victims.
At the centerpiece of the plan is a call to gradually reduce the value of itemized deductions that those in the highest tax brackets can take for things like mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Pentagon Rethinks Photo Ban on Coffins Bearing War Dead Every week, Air Force cargo jets land and taxi down the runway at Dover Air Force Base, Del., carrying the remains of fallen U.S. troops. After a chaplain says a simple prayer, an eight-man military honor guard removes the metal "transfer cases" from the planes and carries them to a mortuary van. (By Ann Scott Tyson and Mark Berman, The Washington Post) The neurotic, death-fearing author visits a morgue, has a catheter inserted just to see what it's like and buys a skeleton as a gift. "It's funny how certain objects convey a message," Sedaris writes, itemizing what his washer, stove and bathroom scale represent to him. "The skeleton has a much more limited vocabulary and says only one thing: 'You are going to die.'"

sopping

/ˈsɒpɪŋ/

adjective

saturated with liquid; wet through.
"get those sopping clothes off"

item

noun [C] 1 something which is part of a list or group of things: the last item on the list The restaurant has a long menu of about 50 items. Several items of clothing (= clothes) lay on the floor. 2 one of several subjects to be considered: There are three items on the agenda. itemize, UK USUALLY itemise Show phonetics verb [T] to list things separately, often including details about each thing: We asked for an itemized bill, listing all our phone calls and how long they were.

draught (COLD AIR) UK, US draft Show phonetics noun [C] a current of unpleasantly cold air blowing through a room

draughty UK, US drafty Show phonetics adjective

a draughty old house

morgue

noun [C] MAINLY US FOR mortuary (= place where dead bodies are kept) n.

A place in which the bodies of persons found dead are kept until identified and claimed or until arrangements for burial have been made.
A reference file in a newspaper or magazine office.

[French, from la Morgue, building in Paris used as a morgue, probably from morgue, haughty manner, from Old French morguer, to look at solemnly, from Vulgar Latin *murricāre, to make a face, from *murrum, muzzle.]

mortuary Formerly a gift of the second-best beast of a deceased parishioner to the incumbent of the parish church, later the second best of the moveable goods from the estate. The custom persisted sporadically into the 18th cent.; the term now applies more usually to a place for the temporary reception of the dead.