EMA

Ema may refer to:

EMA may refer to:

In medicine:

In music:

In organizations:

Emma (given name)

Emma is a given female name. It is derived from the Germanic word ermen meaning whole or universal, and was originally a short form of Germanic names that began with ermen. Emma is also used as a diminutive of Emmeline, Amelia or any other name beginning with "em". It was introduced to England by Emma of Normandy, who was the wife both of King Ethelred II (and by him the mother of Edward the Confessor) and later of King Canute. It was also borne by an 11th-century Austrian saint, who is sometimes called Hemma.

After the Norman conquest this name became common in England. It was revived in the 18th century, perhaps in part due to Matthew Prior's poem Henry and Emma (1709). It was also used by Jane Austen for the central character, the matchmaker Emma Woodhouse, in her novel Emma (1815).

It has been among the top names given to baby girls in the United States, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Ireland, France, Sweden, Belgium, Russia, Canada, Australia, Norway, New Zealand, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain in the past 10 years. It began gaining popularity in the United Kingdom during the 1960s. By 1974 it was the fourth most popular girl's name in England and Wales. It was still in the top 10 as late as 1995, but had fallen out of the top 20 by 2005 and in 2009 it ranked at 41st.

Ema (Shinto)

Ema (絵馬) are small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshippers write their prayers or wishes. The ema are then left hanging up at the shrine, where the kami (spirits or gods) are believed to receive them. They bear various pictures, often of animals or other Shinto imagery, and many have the word gan'i (願意), meaning "wish", written along the side. In ancient times people would donate horses to the shrines for good favor; over time this was transferred to a wooden plaque with a picture of a horse, and later still to the various wooden plaques sold today for the same purpose.

Ema are sold for various wishes. Common reasons for buying a plaque are for success in work or on exams, marital bliss, to have children, and health. Some shrines specialize in certain types of these plaques, and the larger shrines may offer more than one. Sales of ema help support the shrine financially.

See also

Markedness

Markedness /ˈmɑːkɪdnəs/, in linguistics and subsequently elsewhere, is the state of standing out as unusual or difficult in comparison to a more common or regular form. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant default or minimum-effort form is known as unmarked; the other, secondary one is marked. In other words, markedness involves the characterization of a "normal" linguistic unit against one or more of its possible "irregular" forms.

In linguistics, markedness can apply to, among others, phonological, grammatical, and semantic oppositions, defining them in terms of marked and unmarked oppositions, such as honest (unmarked) vs. dishonest (marked). Marking may be purely semantic, or may be realized as extra morphology. The term derives from the marking of a grammatical role with a suffix or another element, and has been extended to situations where there is no morphological distinction.

In social sciences more broadly, markedness is, among other things, used to distinguish two meanings of the same term, where one is common usage (unmarked sense) and the other is specialized to a certain cultural context (marked sense).

Marked (novel)

Marked is the first novel of the House of Night fantasy series written by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast.

Young teenagers are selected to enter a four-year period transformation to a vampire and marked with an the unfilled mark of a crescent moon. Those are sent to their local Houses of Night, private schools directed by vampires, specialized in helping the adolescents, called fledglings, survive the Change.

Young fledgling Zoey is unusual: unlike other normal fledglings, she bears a filled mark, a sign that the goddess of vampires, Nyx, has bestowed a great destiny onto her, but she also has to deal with normal high school girl issues:school, boyfriends and the evil popular girl waiting just around the corner.

The book has been translated into more than 20 languages including French, Spanish, German and Chinese.

Plot

Sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird lives in a world where vampires have always existed. One day, during school, Zoey is marked by a Tracker to become a fledgling vampire at the Tulsa House of Night, a boarding school where she will be trained to become an adult vampire. She faints, only to find herself deserted by almost everyone and hurries home. Her mother, Linda Heffer, blames her for the Mark and, together with her ultra-religious husband (Zoey's stepfather/step-loser), she tries to keep Zoey at home, to be presented to the Elders of the People of Faith, an anti-vampire group. As fledglings need to be constantly in the presence of an adult vampire so that their bodies won't reject the Change, Zoey flees to her grandmother Sylvia, a Cherokee Wise Woman. On the way she passes out and has a vision with the vampire goddess, Nyx, who announces to Zoey that she will be her "eyes and ears" at the House of Night. The goddess leaves Zoey with the words "Darkness does not always equate to evil, Light does not always bring good" which becomes a very frequent and important message throughout the series.

Star Wars Tales Volume 6

Star Wars Tales Volume 6 is the sixth Star Wars Tales trade paperback, collecting issues 21-24.

Star Wars Tales 21

Nomad, Chapter one

A ship on a mission to return the deadly prisoner called Lycan to Coruscant crashes on the lands of Darca Nyl and he finds a dying Jedi Knight in the wreckage. The Jedi tells him of Lycan and gives Nyl his lightsaber. Nyl rushes back home and finds his son slain by Lycan, which causes Darca to pursue him.

Darca Nyl's pursuit leads him to an uninhospitable, colonized planet in the Outer Rim rich with ore, where he soon meets Samuel, the owner of the planet's mining facility. Samuel mistakes the lightsaber-wielding Nyl for a Jedi after he ends a conflict between Samuel's men and a boy accused of conspiring in the kidnapping of Samuel's daughter Leddar. Samuel reveals that Lycan has already left the planet a week earlier on a supply ship, but he asks Nyl to help return his daughter before he tells him Lycan's destination. Darca Nyl accepts the deal and ventures with Samuel outside the facility in protective suits to find Ledd. After a brief fight they managed to disarm the kidnapper and rescue Leddar. Samuel finally reveals that Lycan was heading for Molavar.