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By Sharon Zukin Everyone knows by now that Tropical Storm Irene, which blew through the East Coast last weekend, flooded the beaches, suburbs and some inland towns but did little lasting damage in New York City. I have seldom felt so lucky to live on a high floor with no river view and on a street with very few trees.

We had an earthquake this week -  the second one in my whole life and I am over half a century old.  It caused such a stir that it was the only thing people talked about for a day or two after.  This photo of a plastic lawn chair on its back has been floating around Facebook as the aftermath of the Great East Coast Earthquake and it represents the "damage" we felt around here.  The tremor was about what you'd expect if a really big truck dragging a heavy trailer came by your house.  Ooooooo!!  Scary!

Sad, isn't it?  We're suffering from the great earthquake of '11.

As the hurricane season keeps blowing, take advantage of the great hurricane resources on the Sylvan Dell website! Play a hurricane crossword puzzle, learn hurricane vocabulary, and all about how to prepare for a hurricane.  Check out the hurricane activities here, or visit the Ready, Set…WAIT! book homepage on our website.

Ready, Set…WAIT!

Hurricane . . . just the word brings to mind the power of these natural disasters. Humans watch the news and know of impending arrival. We board up windows and gather supplies. We might huddle in our homes or go inland. Then we wait for the storm to arrive. But what do wild animals do? Do they know when a storm is coming? If so, how do they prepare? This book explains how nine animals sense, react, and prepare for a hurricane. Based on research or observations, the brief portraits are explained in simple, poetic language for children of all ages.

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The first time I looked at the etymology of the word hurricane was in August of 2005.

At that time I don’t think I had really begun to consult Urbandictionary.  I do now, because I think it’s a good vehicle to show how slang usages are evolving.

I just checked now and I see that definition two and three tie the word hurricane to drugs and alcohol.

To some degree this shows that slang is slang is slang because according to The Oxford English Dictionary about the time of Samuel Johnson, 250 years ago, the word hurricane referred to a rip roaring house party.

Of course both the new and the older uses of hurricane in this way are pulled from the “blowout” meaning associated with the main meaning of the word.

That’s what the first entry at Urbandictionary refers to “A temporary alliance formed between the ocean and the sky…”

I posted a podictionary episode about the word hurricane on August 28th, 2005 and listened to news reports over the days and weeks following August 29th when Katrina hit New Orleans.

I look back now at the Google trends data for the use of the word hurricane and see regular blips of search activity every August-September hurricane season.

I guess it’s a reflection of human nature that the highest peak of hurricane searches was around the period of Hurricane Rita, the storm that came right after Katrina.

The word hurricane is a word that evolved from local languages in the Caribbean, was picked up by the Spanish before it made its way into English.

In other parts of the world such a storm is called a typhoon.

Neither the words typhoon, cyclone, or tornado have such a marked regular annual beat, or come anywhere close in frequency of use as hurricane on Google trends.

I suppose this reflects the dominant use of Google by Americans who care more about storms in their part of the world.

The word hurricane appeared in written English in 1555 and coincidentally the word tornado appeared only one year later.  For some decades these two words both applied to Caribbean storms, until hurricane came to dominate and tornado withdrew to a meaning of a more localized blowout by the early to mid 1600s.

The word cyclone was an invented word by a fellow named Henry Piddington in 1848.

Piddington took it upon himself to figure out what the heck was happening out there at sea when one of these big blowouts took place.  He became very respected and valuable in India and England because what he found out saved a bundle in shipping losses.

He named the storms cyclones and most etymologies give the Greek root of this as cyclos meaning “circle.” But he actually visualized the storms like a giant snake coiled up on itself and the appropriate Greek word for that was cycloma.

Great Abaco Island, Bahamas

Population: 14,000 (2005 est.)

Coordinates: 26 25 N 77 10 W

Think of the trade winds, steady equatorial air currents, and you might imagine early European explorers drifting across the Atlantic towards a cluster of lush islands strung across the Caribbean Sea like a necklace of pearls. But it is these same winds that also bring an annual average of six hurricanes to this region between June and November—tropical storms that are beginning to make the news once again. In fact, just yesterday, the National Hurricane Center announced that Bertha, the second named storm of the 2008 season, had graduated to Category Three on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. So you’ll want to steer clear of Bertha, but if you’re searching for a “Hurricane Capital,” look no further than Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas; since 1851 it has endured 18 severe hurricanes (Category 3, 4, or 5) and 40 altogether which works out to about one every four years.

Ben Keene is the editor of Oxford Atlas of the World. Check out some of his previous places of the week.

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The Ajan Warrior of the Night

“Well now we know why Miss Shannon had that big silly grin on her face a couple days ago. She’s got herself a brand new warrior page!”

“Ooh, it’s got everything! Let’s see, there’s Kishi and her ring, and her cape and arrows and it’s even got three different kinds of earrings!”

“It is a pretty nice page, huh?”

“Okay ladies, me and hunter girl over here have got our warrior stuff together. Let’s get with it! Where’s your new pages?! We’ve got four to go!”

“Oh my goodness”

“Heheee.. Ooh, if you wanna read one of the stories from Shannon-sama’s book when she’s the Huntress and fights monsters with her magical cat named Kishi, you should go see the Call of the Huntress page, ’cause we gots lots of neat stories! Have fun minna!”