back from my meeting with the arabic tutor. i was exhausted then, but now that i'm home i'm wide awake.
among other things today we messed around with the root: qa'ada. it's a good one too. the word for grammar "qawaa'id" comes from that root. but "qawaa'id" is actually a plural. the singular form: qaa'ida means "base" (thus "grammar" literally means "the basis" i.e. the underlying basis for the language). with a definite article it's "the base" which now features the standard english spelling: "al-qaeda"
but it gets better! "baseball" in arabic is "kurat al-qaeda"
some national pastime.
