aa (ah-ah) noun

Lava having a rough surface.

[From Hawaiian, apparently from the sound one emits on touching the hot lava surface.] (Italics mine)

Aa is one of the two kinds of lava typically found in Hawaiian volcanoes.
The other kind is pahoehoe, one with a smooth, ropy surface. You can see their pictures at:
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Products/Pglossary/aa.html
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Products/Pglossary/pahoehoe.html

“Aa has a surface that’s broken into blocks with sharp, spiny projections.”
Ian Skilling, Lavas and Life, The World & I (Washington, DC), Jul 1998.

“With so much to memorize, trying to recall that aa is a kind of solidified lava or that an ai is a three-toed sloth, would tax the brain unnecessarily. Mr. Keskaroonkul estimates he knows nearly 110,000 words, or nearly 70% of Webster’s New World Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster. In comparison, the average college graduate is said to have an active vocabulary of 10,000 to 15,000 words.”Joseph Pereira, Hard Scrabble: Thais Who Play Very Well Learn the Dictionary — But Some Have No Idea at All What the Words Mean; Why Clutter Up the Mind?, The Wall Street Journal (New York), Jul 19, 1999.

Here’s a fascinating story about a failed 1940s collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. oooh… I’d love to see it.

Also, some folks might want to check out TCUP – The Collective Unconsciousness Project… a place I store some of my dreams. a fun place to travel around, too, now that it’s been rewritten. Hooray for spell check and keywords!

Explore Updates:
* Choose which keyword you want to travel with.
* Search for a keyword of your choice.
* See how many unread dreams are associated with each keyword.
* The system now remembers your font size preference.
* 20 new photographs.
* A new scrollbar.

Log Updates:
* You can now title a dream, which will show in your dream log area.
* There is now a spell check.

Overall Updates:
* Conversion of all pages to XHTML,
for increased compatibility with current and future web browsers.
* The interface is cleaned up a little.

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