So What’s Epal?

Five Classifications of Epal
Five Classifications of Epal

I was about to re-share a photo posted by When In Manila on Facebook, when a friend of mine here in the US saw it. The image had everything written English, except for one word, which was Epal. I had to explain it and gave the etymology of the word. And I decided to blog about it’s etymology.

What is Epal?

Filipinos have this weird way of turning some words into Filipino slang words by flipping the order of syllables, or flipping the order of sounds, or flipping the order of some letters or all letters. Where that method of creating slang words came from,  I don’t know.

Looking at the word epal, this originally started with the Tagalog word for paper, which is papel. When you flip the two vowels, it turns into pepal, and after saying it over and over by various people, for some reason, the first “p” got dropped and turned into epal.

So What if Epal means Paper?

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Super Moon! May 5, 2012 Photos – View from San Diego, California

Photo 3 of Super Moon taken on May 5, 2012 from San Diego / Escondido, California
Super Moon taken on May 5, 2012 from San Diego / Escondido, California

 

So probably many of you have heard tonight May 5, 2012) is the night when the moon should appear larger and brighter than it normally is. I can definitely see that it is indeed brighter. But seeing the moon to be larger would not be that easy to notice. According to the smart science people (you know astronomers, NASA people, Wikipedia updaters and stuff in news results), the moon will appear 14% larger. C’mon, would you even notice that?

Supermoon May 5, 2012 - The moon is 14% bigger, but can you really notice 14%?
Supermoon May 5, 2012 - The moon is 14% bigger, but can you really notice 14%?

For those that already took a look outside, did you noticed any difference in the appearance of the moon? Were you disappointed if the supermoon didn’t look as super at all? If you look at the image above, 14% increase may be hard to notice in a circle. Read on to find out which one of the circles is larger.

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