Word: beak
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Hangover preventives have been peddled since the days of Pliny. His favorites were screech-owl eggs, roasted boar's lung and powdered pumice. Pliny also quoted an Assyrian who had good results with a swallow's beak, ground up with myrrh. (He gave no directions for catching the swallow.) Bitter almonds had a legendary reputation in the Middle Ages, but Sir Thomas (Religio Medici) Browne, checking up in the 17;th century, sadly reported: "That antidote against ebriety . . . hath commonly failed." Later came raw eels, thoughtfully suffocated in wine. Present-day self-treatments include yeast, yoghurt, lime juice...
...when he went into the Navy, he was making nearly $25,000 a year, and spending his extra cash buying up patents on everything from hair straighteners to paint-can handles. One of them was a bird that would sit on the edge of a water glass, dip its beak in & out for hours on end. At war's end Tigrett licensed a manufacturer to make it, cleaned up $100,000 on his "Glub-Glub...
...Nara-period lacquer of the demigod Karura, one of the legendary protectors of Shakamuni Buddha. His unknown craftsman visualized him as looking a good deal like an ancient warrior, with stern glance, hanging jowls and a suit of mail-but distinguished from ordinary mortals by a belligerently bird-like beak...
...beak? Modern Japanese are not sure. One opinion is that Karura is patterned after the Indian bird-god. Garuda, who used to thrive on serpents. Another version: Karura broke some of Buddha's precepts and got his face altered in punishment. The 420,000 Japanese who trooped past him were hardly bothered by historical uncertainties; Karura, in all his fierce, proud finery, was simply a pleasure to look...
...beak...