Contrary to popular belief, most linguists today consider it a myth that the Eskimo language has an unusually large number of words (some say 50 and some others say 100!) for snow.
It goes to show the danger of accepting everything you read in the popular press or media without first “filtering” via the grey matter between our ears.
By the way, there’s no one Eskimo language too ;)
We don’t have to look far. In the English language, we have:
"blizzard", "flurry", "pack", "slush," "drift", "sleet," and "powder"
Each refer to different types of snow, but all are recognized as varieties of "snow" in a general sense.
Now imagine having a debate on whether “sleet” is snow or water?
First there is the British Commonwealth definition of sleet and the US definition of sleet.
After getting through this hurdle, the debate will continue on whether sleet is more rain (water) or snow…
Some of you may chime in now to say: “Isn’t snow also water?”
Exactly!
What is water?
Most will recognise water in the form of ice, river, lake, ocean, and glacier, etc.
Less obvious would be cloud. Can it be considered as water? How about mist?
Taking it a bit further, how about cucumber and water-melon?
Ah! I bet you know what’s coming next!
How about man? Are we water too? 70% share of body mass does not count?
What’s my point?
No, I am not mind fxxxing you. I tease you not!
Just substitute money with water and pause and reflect for a while.
Wage slaves, to borrow this terminology from my fellow blogger AK71, only recognize money in the most obvious forms.
But to an investor, trader, and/or speculator, the ability to recognize the less obvious forms of money is an edge in finding hidden gems whether others have missed.
Just this evening, I saw on the TV news that one American has bought a sketch, by pop-art master Andy Warhol when he was 10 years old, for the princely sum of US$5 dollars at a garage sale?
The sketch is now valued at a cool 2 million dollars. How’s that for recognizing “water”?
Similar tales have also happened in Singapore where some “lucky” karang-guni man (rag an bone) have bought antiques from clueless owners who some them as junk...
How can these “junk” be an “asset”? They just sit there and produce no cash flow.
You mean Warren Buffet can be wrong?
Singapore Man of Leisure (welcome to my blog; just google it!)
