Great clouds over El Paso

November 9, 2016, gave us our first daylight time back in Texas since we’d left on our great southwestern trip three weeks earlier. What impressed me the most that morning was the fantastic clouds that stayed with us as we drove from El Paso to Hueco Tanks. The picture above features a yucca, and the one below shows sand sagebrush, Artemisia filifolia, both on the east side of El Paso.

In lieu of a quotation today, let’s welcome some relevant etymology. English acquired nuance from French, where it was the noun made from the verb nuer. That verb, which meant ‘to shade,’ ultimately goes back to Latin nubes, which signified ‘a cloud, mist, vapor.’ A nuance is a metaphorical ‘shading,’ which is to say ‘a slight difference in meaning, expression, or feeling.’ The fancy verb obnubilate means literally ‘to darken or obscure with clouds, to becloud.’ It also has the figurative sense ‘to make unclear, indistinct, vague.’

Here ends the retrospective of the great 2016 southwestern trip. Next time I’ll jump back into central Texas, where nature has kept on happening throughout the past few weeks.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman