some light questions

[cellio]

I learned today that there is a full-service gas station on my way to/from work. I didn't know we had any of those locally. It's been years (probably decades); what is the conventional tip?

As I pulled up to an intersction (all-way stop), someone from the cross street was backing through the intersection. After backing into the space in front of my car, he immediately popped into drive and went through the intersection. Whose turn was that, the cross-street or mine? :-)

I have occasionally noticed (because of tracking/RSS feeds or because I viewed the journals directly) posts to LJ that did not show up on my friends page. Is this happening to anyone else? I haven't detected a pattern yet.

Why does Hebrew have two words for "open" that differ only (apparently) in what objects they take? It's peh-kuf-chet when talking about eyes and ears, and peh-taf-chet for anything else.

Comments

Hebrew verbs

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

The two verbs פקח פתח are unrelated (ignoring for the moment some Kabbalistic connection that can be made). פתח (Patach) is the usual opening verb. פקח (pakach) usually means other things, and I would classify opening of one's eyes or ears as a side/unusual meaning. That root usually relates to things being either:
*1* especially clever (several mishnayot point out how to be tricky using this word. For example, two nazirites who agree to be nazirites and bring sacrifices for a nazirite other than themselves (basically one says he'll do that and the other says 'me too') should bring the sacrifices for each other if they are clever)
or *2* free of handicap (by comparison to those with some handicap. See mishnayot at the end of Yevamot regarding two siblings, one of whom is deaf and one of whom is 'pikeach'-not deaf).

Re: Hebrew verbs

[cellio]

Thanks for the information! I didn't realize that "to open" wasn't the primary meaning of פקח.