yuki

If anyone out there besides me checks the Ottawa Parliament Hill webcam on a daily basis, you will note that today the grounds in front of the parliament buildings are once again fairly snow-covered. This, despite the vast expanse of green (well, muddy brown) that was apparent for the last week or two. I was actually on Parliament Hill on Sunday with Randal and Rion, and it was lovely. But this morning, when I woke up, it was snowing. No momohiki necessary, thank goodness, but I did take out the winter jacket, gloves and hat. The snow is supposed to turn to rain later today (if it hasn't done so already).

Anyway, all of this is a long run-up to the Japanese Word of the Week, which is either very late or a little early (depending on whether anyone noticed that I forgot to post a word last week):

yuki = snow
(pron. "yoo-kee")

There seem to be many different ways to say "snow" in Japanese, but as far as I can ascertain, yuki is meant to indicate the basic, bare-bones, plain-and-simple phenomenon that we know as snow. Not "gosh darn it my buns are freezing" snow, or "where did my car go" snow, or even "early winter" snow, but just snow all on its own.

Regardless of the exact meanings, I for one submit that the resemblance of the Japanese word yuki to the English word yucky is no coincidence. 'Nuff said.