JB's new words interactive section

gan bei.

it means knocking one glass by another glass.

I raise my tsing tao too!

gan bai my wonderful inscrutable Sino friend and Skol, buen aprovecha to all the others on this wonderful thread

inscrutable again?!

seems I still cannot use English to express my feelings well up to now :wink:

It is I who used English incorrectly for you are hardly inscrutable. Rest assured your English is improving in leaps and bounds

Nice english phrase :wink:

The definition of "Gan bei" (Chinese pinyin):

1) To raise a glass and drink in honor of or to the health of a person or thing.

2) Skoal.

I am back comrades.

I am sorry for the 2-week-long absense because I am dispatched to my grandparents' home, a small but scenic village in Zhejiang province which is less then 50 kilos from the coast and 100 kilos from Shanghai, where I find no computers but only net (honestly through the telephone line) for the spring festival preparetion.

Today the last day of the year on Chinsse calendar my parents returned, with the laptop

SO, great to meet you guys and gals again and hope you can celebrate the spring festival together with us----maybe to0 luxious to be here physicaly, then mentaly

I can hardly say that English reading was easy these days------Basically I was unable to get any help in this remote town. And that made me aware that you are really important

These days I haave been reading a big stuff-----OVERLORD by Max Hastings. Although I read it extremely slowly, but enjoyed in it as well, that was why i still keep patience in reading it.

Well, you will soon have to deal with my question.

We are waiting...breathlessly.

SOLE

This word means "the bottom surface of a shoe" in terms of a noun, and also means "being the only one" in terms of an adjective.

How do they find any relations between these two?

There is no relation between the two. Unfortunately English is full of words that are identical but can mean 5 different things.

Here's a book I'm enjoying on line that discusses the development of American English. It's by H.L. Mencken

http://www.bartleby.com/185/

Panzade: showing me the book which i cannot even touch is a fine way to irritate me.

What do you mean JB? You can click on the link and voila!

Excuse me buddy
I didnt realise that this is cool online library
rather than a bookshop like Amazon which would cost me lot of dollars.
Thanks for the site!

Talking about the online library, I am really looking forward to Google Library which will come completely in 5 years.

Me too.

I cannot find "bellwether" in my dictionary. I guess it is not a negative one

Interesting JB. I never knew the history of that word.

Etymology: Middle English, leading sheep of a flock, leader, from belle bell + wether; from the practice of belling the leader of a flock
: one that takes the lead or initiative : LEADER; also : an indicator of trends

thanks, that make sense