Sincerely yours

I've been listening to Dan Brown's newest Robert Langdon novel The Lost Symbol these days. It's a (surprisingly long) 17-hour audio book, and right now I am at hour 11. Having read all his previous books, I am quite familiar with his formula and can predict a lot of the plots. Often times I feel very impatient as to why it takes so long to get to the point. One other thing I learned was to take a grain of salt in every FACT he introduced in his books. How naive and easily convinced I was when I read The Da Vinci Code (especially considering that I am a scientist)!

So far there hasn't been any extraordinary revelation that has grabbed my attention. But last night I learned something interesting: the origin of the word "sincere". In the old times sculptors used to use wax to cover up parts of a stone that was mistakenly chiseled away, and then spread stone dust to make it look like untouched. This was considered cheating. The word "sincere" actually means no wax (sin: no; cere: might be from Greek keros wax). So when one signs his letter 'Sincerely yours', he means he wrote the letter without wax, thus without pretense or deceit.

The other word I know where sin means no was one of the few Spanish words I learned during my Peru trip: agua sin gas (water without gas). After being served carbonated water (which I really hate) a few times, I learned agua sin gas pretty well. The other Spanish words I know are cuánto (how much -- but if they answer, I would be at a lost) and gracias (thank you). Impressive vocabulary!

It's nice listening to Susan Boyle while writing this entry. Her renditions of Madonna's You'll See and the Carpenters' The End of the World are quite good.

Happy Thanksgiving!