Istantidbits V

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More Turkish Delights
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Crepe, Swing = Men's apparel shops
Gluttoni, TENT = Apparel shops for large men
FitFlops, Crash = Men's shoes
ZEN = An air conditioning and heating company
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Differences I noticed between Sophia and Istanbul last Christmas
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Although only 480 km apart, there are distinct physical differences between the humans inhabiting these two major population centers. Where Turks are generally short and thin, Bulgarians tend to be tall and stout. The women are bustier, and only too happy to show one the difference (sartorially speaking, of course). My finely-honed investigative instincts tell me that this is due to religion: one culture believes that drinking beer and eating pork is okay; the other does not. You guess which is which.
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Traffic. The streets in Istanbul are generally narrow and choked with vehicles: trucks frequently party in the opposite lane while the driver drinks tea and/or plays backgammon with friends; cars are parked on the sidewalks, and motorbikes weave among them while we pedestrians are frequently forced to walk in the streets among the honking vehicles; stop/go lights are rare. In other words, it's a jostling, friendly chaos. In Sophia, the streets are very wide, every intersections has stop/go lights, and the sidewalks are free of cars. But so are the streets. The few cars that chugged by were old and worn (like the author, but he still chugs -- just ask anyone who has had the misfortune to sit next to him too long on a bus), and crossing the street was eerily safe. In Sophia, I waited 25 minutes for a taxi, during which time I was turned down by three drivers because they did now know where my hotel was, even when given the address and telephone number. I have never waited over two minutes for a Taxi in Istanbul.
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Turkish TV: The Cigarette Smudge
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I believe I have previously mentioned the monumentally unsuccessful Turkish anti-smoking campaign. Large No Smoking posters adhere to the walls of every public building, with threats of inconsequential fines. On TV, whenever a character appears with a nicotine delivery system in his or her hand or mouth, it is invisibilated by an oval smudge or, in earlier versions, a cartoon flower. So, in Casablanca, Bogie tells Sam to play it again while he broods over the piano with a flower covering his hand while smoke rises in a cinematic wreath of incense around his head.
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It's so silly. The majority of the adult population in Turkey smokes. (Islam forbids drinking alcohol, maybe because alcohol came to the desert peoples carried and abused by the marauding Crusaders. Tobacco hadn't reached the Middle East when the Koran was written. Go figure.) Where I come from, we say of a heavy smoker, "He smokes like a chimney." The Italians have another aphorism: "Fumare della Turka."
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Language
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Turkish is a very economical language. One sees this best when signing bifurcated official documents that have the Turkish text on the left side of the page and the English translation on the right. There is much more white space (fewer words) in the Turkish column. In other words, the original Turks did not waste time creating or absorbing unnecessary words. I know very little Turkish, but my favorite example is in naming the days of the week. The Turks do not have names for Saturday or Monday. They simply call these days after the days they follow: Cuma (Friday) becomes Cumartesi (the day after Friday); Pazar (Sunday) becomes Pazartesi (The day after Sunday. While efficient, a language such as this does not lend itself well to the ambiguities and nuances that create great poetry and plays. For instance, the subtle humor of the Country-Western title, "I Gave Her the Ring, and She Gave Me the Finger," would be lost on the Turk.
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