Miscellanea

  1. Final, or perhaps Fınal, is a brand of Turkish tea.

  2. Sphinx, among other things, is a brand of urinals. Even myopic me could read the conspicuously placed inscription.

  3. French loans in Turkish, such as asansör (pl. asansörleri) and kuaför, remind me of the abundance on French loans in Russian. The Russian term for hairdresser was once kuafer or kuafyor, just like in Turkish, but later yielded to a German loan, parikmakher. The best-sounding German loan in Russian is–little doubt–the now defunct fryshtykat’, from frühstücken.

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