Pound of threshold

Shy, this plant is not…

I bought two chayotes, tried to eat one but didn't like it. If there's anything delicious about the chayote, it isn't the taste. Left in the vegetable rack, the second one sprouted. I planted it and it miraculously thrived. Made me think of Jack's beanstalk.

In Taiwan, chayotes are widely planted for their shoots, known as lóng xü cài (龍鬚菜, literally "dragon-whisker vegetable").

In Haiti and Louisiana (Cajun, Creole, English): mirliton :- (kazoo) (I'm a gnu—a-g-nother gnu)

En langage familier, mirliton se dit de sons, d'airs de musique, de vers de mauvaise qualité.

Only translation I could find was "cheap verses".

Chayote reminds me of coyote and Shylock.

But the word that is titillating me at the moment is écueil.

Recif, rocher à fleur d'eau = reef

Difficulté, obstacle = pitfall = noun. 1. a lightly covered and unnoticeable pit prepared as a trap for people or animals.

The dictionary tells me it is a sharp rock under the surface of the sea, but in my mind it is a stagnant dead-end pool.

At first I can't understand how I could have associated such a wrong mental image with the word. I see sand and water lapping to the edge of a shallow pool, it can't go any farther (Bras mort = dead leg) and there is foam on it (l'écume des jours). As I explore the image in my mind the rocks appear, I am walking on rocks that emerge at low tide, and there is some sand and pools and crabs in the pools… 

 

The sound of the word intrigues me. Maybe it is one of the most foreign sounds in French – I can't think of anything similar to it in English.

Écueil, écuyer, cuillère, écureuil, écurie, métayer, œil pour œil, recueil, recueillir, se recueillir et cueillir, Rangueil, orgueil, accueil, éconduire, éculé, veule, vile, écaille, Reuilly

Shale, grève, fange, quicksand, ladle…

Treuil, feuille, Montreuil… which is another story, without a shadow of a doubt...