Uncle Garabed's Notebook (March 5, 2011)

A Minor Moralist

Wealth is like water. He who does not open up a gate to carry off its overflow drowns in it.

…Al-Siqilli

Armenian Alliteration

One thing the Western Armenian language has which Eastern Armenian does not is a special way to say “very,” depending on the word in question. For example, instead of using “shad,” which is the standard word for “very” in describing something that is very black, the word “sep” can be used. It has no meaning on its own, but in conjunction with the word black, “sep sev” comes to mean very black, or blacker than black. Here is a list of other known examples: bas barab, chop chor, dzup dzur, gas gabouyd, gas ganach, gas garmir, jep jermag, lep letsun, mis minag, nip nihar, pas parag, ship shidag, tap tats, tep teghin, tsoup tsourd.

…from Armeniapedia

From the Trivia File

The first film version of “Frankenstein” was a 15-minute silent produced by Thomas Edison.

A Turkish Custom of Braying to Death in a Mortar

Baron de Tott says, “Fanaticism has enacted in Turkey that the goods of the ulemats or lawyers shall never be confiscated: nor shall any ulemat be put to death, except by being pounded in a mortar.”

From My Persian Dictionary

Tamám: complete, end, conclusion

Halvá,í: confectioner

Shakarí: confectionery

Shíríní: confectionery

What’s in a Name?

Giragosian: Greek in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, Kyriakos (Cyriacus in English) is defined as patron, dominical, belonging to the Lord. Sourp Giragos Church in Dikranagerd is named for a local three-year-old boy martyred sometime toward the end of the third century.

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CK Garabed

Weekly Columnist

C.K. Garabed (a.k.a. Charles Kasbarian) has been active in the Armenian Church and Armenian community organizations all his life. As a writer and editor, he has been a keen observer of, and outspoken commentator on, political and social matters affecting Armenian Americans. He has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Reporter and the AGBU Literary Quarterly, “ARARAT.” For the last 30 years, Garabed has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Weekly. He produces a weekly column called “Uncle Garabed's Notebook,” in which he presents an assortment of tales, anecdotes, poems, riddles, and trivia; for the past 10 years, each column has contained a deconstruction of an Armenian surname. He believes his greatest accomplishment in life, and his contribution to the Armenian nation, has been the espousing of Aghavni, and the begetting of Antranig and Lucine.