01 Feb

rediscovering a word series 1: hint

Mighty mango juice from the Naked juice (source: The Naked Juice)

Last weekend, I visited my brother-in-law’s family who lives in Virginia. As a preparation for a trip that takes around 6 hours one way, my parents-in-law and I went shopping at Costco. We bought some fruits and juices. What kind of juices did you buy? We bought the Naked juices. It is a juice brand in the U.S. and it is pretty expensive because it claims that it does not have any artificial flavors but has only pure juice from fruits.

We bought mango juices and have drank most of them but some were left over during the trip. This morning I took that out from the refrigerator and drank it with my breakfast.

As I drank, I happend to pay attention to the bottle.

It says:

1 1/4 mangoes, 1/2 orange, 1 3/4 apples, 1/3 banana, and a hint of lemon.

As I was reading through, one word caught my eyes. It was a “hint” of lemon. Hint! I know that word. It means “a slight or indirect indication or suggestion.” I, sometimes, give out hints to students when they are struggling to solve a problem. I am sure we all know what it means in this context.

What is a hint of lemon? Is it like a small piece of lemon? That was my first guess. Luckily, it was correct. Hint also means “a very slight or hardly noticeable amount.”

It was my first time to see this word, hint, used to mean hardly noticeable amount. I gotta pay more attention to small things around me to learn, or I should say rediscover, English words.

Wow, a hint of lemon! Let me give you a hint! We do not know anything until we really dig into it.