Names
Pallasti (Pallast)
Ballast. Known as Ballasti until 1939, but genuine Estonian names do not (or should not) start with a B, D or G. Ballast comes in two main types: ship and rail. Historically, it was the heavy material, usually rock, that empty cargo ships loaded for stability on return trips then dumped near port on arrival. This was one of the sources of crushed granite or quartzite that engineers used for the combination of grip and give provided by its rough, irregular fracture lines to stabilize railway beds, hence the name ‘track ballast’. One of a rock-based neighborhood. See Sikupilli.
Palli (Pall)
Ball. Also bale; rating and Beaufort number. Part of a mini game-name area, see Sihi. Palli is also the only cobbled (munakivi, lit. egg stone) street in Nõmme. English ‘cobble’ may come from a Proto-Germanic base *kubb‑ meaning something rounded, while its German Kopfstein (lit. head(-shaped)-stone, nothing to do with cemeteries) is derived from the same PIE root of *keup‑, a hollow, as English ‘cup’ (see Kaevuri) and not, surprisingly, from PIE *kaput‑, head (see Hobusepea), opposite ends of the same hemisphericity, although the two are probably derived from a common root. But the ‘cobble’ stones here may be ‘setts’, in other words, stones that have literally been prepared or ‘set’, rather than being the naturally-occuring rounded ones.
