green beauty, the inlet, snow bowls, granite faces, scars

Wow, this is fun. I never thought about much we take for granted in understanding our native language. It's strange having to put them into words.

1. In English, beauty when used as a noun can be for many things, just because the speaker finds in beautiful. In this case, the writer is calling the whole bay area beautiful, calling it green because it is so lush with growing things.

2. An inlet in this case is an entrance way from the sea or ocean into the mainland, or forest.

3. Snow bowls? Not sure. By reading your reference I'm seeing it as the snow that settled between the peaks. Like huge bowls of snow between the mountatins.

4. the face of a mountain is a name for a side of the mountain, as in "the mountain climbers decided to ascend the mountain by the North face."
I envision personally the face of a mountain to be very steep, vertical with no plants, just rock.

5. Scars in the forest..... Well, if there were tumbled rocks that had ruined/gotten rid of some of the trees, it would look like a scar where trees should be.
When something is scarred, it means it is ruined/damaged.
If you have a scar on your face, it's because something damaged it.

What book are you reading?
May I ask where you are from?

I'm exercising my English reading. And I'm reading an article in Los Angeles Times, which I saved some time weeks ago. And I'm from China.

Snow bowls? I'm not sure if your explanation apples. Because in my experience, snow usually stay on the top of the mountain. Oh, no, yes, it can be on the valley too. Because maybe it just snowed. Ok. Let me think it over again.

5 So why are a pile of stones here and there like a scar?

Ummmmm, lets see.....Oh!

Let's say you are a man with a full beard (the land is your entire face, the beard would be the trees, the nose, forehead would be the barren rock near the top)

If you injured your cheeks, chin and neck in several places, like through getting burned or cut, no hair would grow there, because you would have scars instead.
So, you would see a forest of beard hair, but barren areas where the scars (or rocks) are.

When companies come in and cut down large portions of the amazon rain forest, they are said to be scarring the land.

Translat, I once split the left side of my jaw after a night of too much drinking. It left a scar near my jawline and now, when I try to grow a beard, it does not grow where the scar is. Imagine that my face is a forest and the whiskers are trees. Do you get the picture?

Damn, Chai. You're quick.

They say alcohol slows down your typing skills

It'sh jhust thad I half to type sssso many eckssstra conssssonants to ged the ssslurrring jhust right.

When I was young - I drank a lot (no more).
Once when I was really loaded I was coming down a flight of stairs in a townhouse and went ass over teakettle.
I grabbed at one of the bannister rails with my right hand, but the rest of my body continued the journey. Now I have a scar that slashes arcoss my right wrist.

Always a good coversation starter.

Gee - this is like being Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw comparing their scars in Jaws.

I've also got a knee that gives out.....

Oh, you make it so vivid. And you're so humorous.
Do you both really have scars, it's terrible! I'm sorry to hear that.

See for yourself:

And I'm not sure whether my thinking about the snow bowls is right. Since I have no idea about what snow on a mountain would be like. I can just imagine one on the Japanese Fujisan mountain, but if that is a (snow) bowl, that will be a upside-down one. If snow covered the valley, it's different. It's just like a bowl.

And snow stay on top of a mountain because the temperature is very low, usually below freezing. But if it just snowed, I think maybe the whole mountain is covered with snow. And not only the valley part.

Yes, it's also a bowl, but a bigger one. It's slightly different, what would you say?

"Snow bowls" are a feature of mountain landscapes, created by the action of glaciers. Over millennia the glaciers scoop out deep rounded depressions in the mountain side, and in winter, or in the very high mountains where snow lies all the year round, these look like bowls full of snow.

Thanks Syn, I wasn't sure about those snow bowls, never heard of them before.



Nothing terrible about scars, no one gets through life without them, metaphorically or literally.

They are memories of both good and bad times, and reminders that you were tough enough to take it.

A scar means something has healed.

And thank all of you again.