Well, I think kissing someone or ahveing some cookies is a <em>wiser</em> reaction than just installing some app.

But we should thank Italki team for drawing our attention: to the cookie, to the city, to the app...

There is something nice about this sense of guerilla struggle agianst crazy moderation. It unites:)

El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

Often I notice that some restrictions we had in Soviet times developed some good qualities in Russians.

Here's the receipe for cookies:

(or transcribed differently "<em>Boussou La Tmessou (بوسو لا تمسو)</em>"):

"<em>Boussou latemessou (kiss him but do not touch him) is a traditional Algerian pastry prepared with sesame seeds, lemon and orange blossom water.</em>"

Regarding the verb for to kiss (in Arabic and Pushtu) WIkitionary has this:

"Likely from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Persian</a> <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%AF%D9%86#Persian" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">بوسیدن</a>‎ (<em style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">busidan</em>), though this is an onomatopoeia common in many languages, where the initial <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/labial" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">labial</a> represents the protruding lips and the <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sibilant" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">sibilant</a> represents the smacking sound. Compare <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">English</a> <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buss#English" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);"><em>buss</em></a>, regional <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">German</a> <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=B%C3%BCtzchen&action=edit&redlink=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(165, 88, 88);"><em>Bützchen</em></a>, <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Busserl#German" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);"><em>Busserl</em></a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Latin</a> <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/basium#Latin" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);"><em>basium</em></a>, etc."

Som, yes, my langauge partner was going to use it for her thesis on computer assisted langauge learning...

@Som

Thanks for the heads up. It appears I'm back now. I wrote the name of an app that starts with the second letter of the alphabet.

Som, ah. It is because of "ability to even hear their variants".

There is

"phonology"

and

"phonetics".

Phonetics is concerned with a sound as it is. Physical and biological thing. Waves, throat constrictions.

A version of IPA transcription a phontician can use is very detailed, it can be a dosen of symbols used to vaguely describe how did you pronounce word "pick" right now.

Of course, you prononce it a bit differently at different times:)

Phonology is concerned with the system of sounds of a languege. "Latin letters" are <em>phonemes</em> of Latin language. Any alphabet is an (incomplete) phonological transcription, like IPA.

And here some difficulties arise.

Actually what you hear as /t/ is a range of possible sounds. And it often happens that two <em>ranges</em> for two letters in your langauge are a bit different than two ranges for two "similar" phonemes in my language. I do have a "t" which is "t" for you. But other time I say "t" (still within the range of "t" for me) which is something else for you:)