Exposure - September 11

I'm working on another paper at the moment.

It happens to be about Muslim v. Western interpretations of September 11... an exercise in comparing how observers of historical events tend to put their own 'spin' on things... or something like that.

When I picked this topic it did not register that this year marks ten years since the attacks.  Over the last few days I've had so many possibly sources to pool through, as everyone rolls out another editorial, or pictorial essay, or historical reflection - it's been overwhelming to say the least.

Today I found my favourite piece of the whole lot in the New York Times Sunday Review.  It's just one photograph and a description, and I thought I'd share.

WWW: Piquancy

Whenever I write a description of myself, like the little blurb in the 'About Me' section (which I deleted, hah.), or if I find myself filling out one of those generic questionnaires (in which I could never tell the difference between 'Hobbies' and 'Past times'), or maybe I'm writing out an imaginary letter to an imaginary pen pal...in Italian.

So, whenever I'm drumming my brain for things I actually like to do as opposed to things I just do...  I always put 'shopping'.

Mi piace fare lo shopping (qualche volte con gli amici).*

Yes, the Italian word for shopping is the same as the English.  No, that is not because Italians were not innovative enough to come up with their own word.  No, that is not because Italians don't even like to shop, and hence why have their own word for it?  No.

There are actually several Italian translations of our English verb 'shop' (because, in reality, Italians are some of the best shoppers in the world.  Oh yeah.)  It all depends on what type of shopping you are doing, what your looking for how, how driven you are going to be, and how much yelling at store keepers you are going to do.  But that's another post.

I have a theory as to why the English word 'shopping' stays the English word 'shopping' in languages other than English.  It's a baby word.  

Stay with me.