Two New Words -- Or, Rather, Three

I shall not now get into the fascinating story of how the Hebrew language, which had long been relegated to use solely for scholarship and Jewish ritual, was reanimated as a living language by Eliezer Ben Yehuda.  It suffices to say that there are many interesting aspects and incidents involving the development, growth, and maintenance of Modern Hebrew.

Two words that are learnt very, very soon after one's arrival in Israel are "Mazgan" (air conditioner) and "Mikulkel" (nonfunctional, broken, kaputt).  It is not unusual for those two words to be learned from the same incident or transaction.

On those occasions where the two words come into one's vocabulary as a result of a single transaction, however, a third word is almost always sure to accompany them:  "Technai."

Fortunately, one of the Anglos with whom we have become mildly acquainted during our thus far short residency here knows a good Technai, who was able to schedule a visit to our apartment on rather short notice.  Our Mazgan is now operational.