I’m endlessly fascinated by language, especially as spoken by Chileans. I haven’t taken nine years (oh hell, when did that happen?) to think about another language like I have Spanish, and I find certain contrasts in what I consider to be formality, odd.

Consider that to have IBS is called “sufre de colon” (he/she suffers from colon, but not Colón, because that’s Christopher Columbus, and if she’s got that in her gastrointestinal tract, no amount of bland diet is going to help). Here we say only half of the condition, which seems peculiar.

There is no particular expression (that we use) for strep throat. There’s amigdalitis (tonsillitis) and then there’s amigdalitis con infección. I looked in vain for the expression for “strep throat” the first year I was here, pshawing and poo-pooing people’s insistance that it was simply, tonsillitis.

But there’s a word that I never thought to look for, the single word that means “stiff neck” or “a crick in your neck.” Torticolis. This we say with some regularity, since, living in Chile, every time “nos da la corriente” (we catch a cool breeze) on your neck, or fail to wear a scarf or use a deep neckline on cool days, you are subject to this possibility.

But what does torticolis have to do with these photos?

I work with the mountains looming over my right shoulder. And if this gorgeous weather keeps up, I am going to get a stiff neck (I mean, torticolis) from so much looking to the right.

Which is where I start talking about some iPhone apps I’m particularly enjoying here, given this unfolded poster of stark blue and white gorgeousness outside my window.

Campy-Polamatic. Awwwww. Turn every day events into nostalgia.

Ansel Adams (I wish)-Hueless. You can choose exposure, filter color and opacity. I think this app is the cat’s black and white meow. Someone recommended it on This Week in Photography, and I adore it.

easy peasy vertical-only, relatively seamless panoramic photos-Dermandar. Line up two icons and the thing automatically snaps. Genius.

Nobody paid me anything to write any of this, which is too bad, because I would use that money to buy more iPhone apps, which is a clever way of suffering from acquisitiveness without actually acquiring anything.

ta.