131 dtg (naughty)

Warning: This blog contains an open reference to female mammary glands.

Any of you who had the misfortune to be educated in English will know of the dismay felt during Year 7 Science Class when you were expected to automatically remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. Seriously now, think about it - which are the ones that goes up and which are the ones that goes down?

Luckily, these are two more great examples of where the Chinese habit of making everything especially literal come to the fore. Let's start with stalagmites.

石笋 Shi-Sun

These two characters literally mean "stone" and "bamboo shoot". Now I am sure you will all agree that remembering that the stone bamboo shoot is the long pointy thing that grows up from the ground is pretty easy, right?

Well, even if you didn't, no matter, because stalactite is also quite straightforward.

钟乳石 Zhong-Ru-Shi

The literal meaning here is "Come to a point - Breast - Stone". Think about it; it hangs down, it comes to a point, and liquid slowly drips from it. There's some pretty clear imagery going on here and if you haven't worked out yet that stalactites are the ones that point down then I suggest you have a chat with your Mum.

So there you go. Apologies for the references to nudity but as Bart Simpson once said, when discussing Religion, "you sure as hell can't talk about hell without mentioning hell", so it is that when discussing Chinese, you sure as hell can't talk about stalactites without mentioning breasts.