random bits

[cellio]

Ok, you guys were right: Heroes rocks, at least so far. I picked up the first season recently; I was hooked after two episodes and have seen six so far. It looks like the second season will be released on DVD in August, which means I won't have too long a wait. Increasingly, I'm coming to think that this is the way to watch most TV shows. (I should also be able to return the first season of Lost to the person who lent it to me and exchange it for the second season soon.) Still, I want to get an antenna up on the roof too. (Note to self.)

We've been having some modem troubles (two modems with different failure modes), so we ordered another recently to experiment with. It looks like we have a family of modems -- maybe a breeding program. given the evidence, I'd have to say that Westel-ness is a dominant gene. :-)

My vet wanted to see Erik recently (just a quick check on something), so while we were there I asked if she could try again to teach me how to push pills into him. (Currently he gets his medicine ground up in canned food, as I seem unable to reliably get a whole pill down.) She demonstrated, then had me try... and she finally said "it's ok; mixing it into the food won't hurt him". I feel inadequate; even my vet gave up on me. :-) (Yes, I have tried that plunger-like gadget. I haven't found the cat treats that have pockets for hiding pills in, but I suspect he's too smart for that.)

A bakery run on the honor system seems not to be loosing money. Interesting idea. (Someone on my reading list posted this link, but I forget who.)

I have a question for the Hebrew-literate. Please humor me. How would you say "I will thank you" (masculine, singular)? I thought I knew, and then I heard a different formation in a song, so I asked a native speaker, who provided a third option. (I think "odecha", song was "odeka", speaker said "odelecha". It's entirely possible that "odecha" is biblical and "odelecha" is modern, but what's with "odeka"?)

Comments

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

What the native speaker told you was two words: "אודה לך" while what you are looking for is the more condensed, and more poetic "אודך". The difference between the kaf (with dagesh) and the chaf (w/o dagesh) is likely the difference b/w your thought and the song. So you could be mishearing, or the singer could be mispronouncing.

I checked against a verse in Psalms 118 which seems not to have the dagesh, so your thought of 'odecha' is likely right. However, this may be some kind of exception, perhaps because of the dropped ה. There are other examples of dropped letters becoming dageshim, such as roots which start with נ in הפעיל being dropped and "becoming" a dagesh in the second root letter.

[cellio]

Thanks. I hadn't realized the native speaker was using two words, though now that you point it out it makes sense. I mean, if I saw that I would recognize it; I just didn't hear the space. :-)

The singer is definitely pronouncing as a kaf, not a chaf. I do not automatically invest the singer with authority, of course. I also don't know all the rules of dageshim.

[cellio]

Ok, I knew I had seen "odecha" in a siddur. It turns out to be in hallel, which I noticed this morning. The siddur (Sim Shalom) translated it in the present tense, though; hmm. It has the vowels of a participle, but that leading alef is an imperfect (future-tense, approximately) marker, so double hmm.