Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
Losing Marbles
If you say that someone has lost their marbles, you either mean that they can’t find their marbles, or that they’re crazy, mad, incompetent, are losing their mind, or are suffering from a mental illness.
It’s not known exactly when or why losing one’s marbles came to be associated with losing one’s mind. One early example that connects marbles with mental capicity appears in a story from April 1898 in The Portsmouth Times, a newspaper from Ohio in the USA:
Prot. J. M. Davis, of Rio Grande college, was selected to present J. W Jones as Gallia’s candidate, but got his marbles mixed and did as much for the institution of which he is the noted head as he did for his candidate.
By the early 20th century, losing or not having all one’s marbles was commonly associated with a decent into madness. For example, American Speech, Vol. 2, No. 8 (May, 1927) has a collection of dialect words from West Virginia that includes the definition:
marbles, doesn’t have all his (verb phrase), mentally deficient. “There goes a man who doesn’t have all his marbles.”
One French equivalent of this idiom is perdre la boule, which literally means ‘to lose the ball’.
Other ways to say this in French include:
- perdre le nord = ‘to lose the north’ – see also Losing the North
- perdre la boussole = ‘to lose the compass’
- perdre la raison = ‘to lose the reason’
- perdre le sens commun = ‘to lose the common sense’
- se perdre les oies = ‘to lose the geese’
- péter les plombs = ‘to blow the fuses’
- péter un câble = ‘to blow a cable’
Incidentally, perdre comes from the same root as the English word perdition (eternal damnation, hell, absolute run, downfall).
Are there interesing ways to say that someone has lost their marbles in other languages?
Sources:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lose-your-marbles.html
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perdre_la_boule#French
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perdo#Latin
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perdition#English
Language Quiz
A Nexus of Connections
What connects the words nexus, annex(e) and connection?
A nexus [ˈnɛksəs] is form or state of connection; a connected group, network or web; or a centre or focus of something. It comes from Latin nexus (bound, tied, fastened, connected, interwoven), from nectō (to connect, interweave, attach, bind, tie, oblige), possibly from nōdus (knot, bond, obligation) and/or nassa (a narrow-necked basket for catching fish) [source].
Apparently in Ancient Rome, a nexus was a person who had contracted a nexum or obligation of such a kind that, if they failed to pay, their creditor could compel them to work as a servant until the debt was paid. This practice was abolished in 326 BC [source].
If there is more than one nexus, there are several nexuses, nexusses or nexi. The plural in Latin is nexūs or nexûs, not nexi, by the way. Do you have a preferred plural for this word?
Related words include nexo (nexus, connection, sense, coherence) in Portuguese, nexo (link, connection, nexus) in Spanish and nexe (nexus, connection, link) in Catalan [source].
The word annex(e) (an addition, extension, appendix) also comes from the same roots, via French annexe (annex(e), appendix), from Latin annexus (tied, fastened, bound, related by blood), from annectō / adnectō (to bind, tie to, connect, annex), from ad- (to) and nectō (to connect, etc) [source].
Related words include anejo (accompaniment, affix) and anexar (to annex, attach) in Spanish, and annettere (to attach, add, annex, consolidate) in Italian [source].
Another connected word is the word connection, which comes from Middle English connexioun (connection), from Latin connexionem, from cōnexiō (junction, meeting, connection), from cōnectō (to connect, link, fasten together) from con- (with) and nectō (to connect, etc) [source].
Related words include connexe (closely related, connected) in French, connesso (connected, associated, linked, related) in Italian and conex (connected) in Romanian [source].
Language Quiz
Chocolate Teapots
When something is useless you might say it’s as useful as a chocolate teapot or something similar.
Apparently it first appeared in print in an article entitled Shades of Bunker Hill! by Don berry in the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York, USA).
Other ways to say that something is useless include:
- as much use as a chocolate teapot
- (to) have a reliability record like a chocolate kettle
- as much use as a chocolate fireguard
- as much use as a chocolate fireplace
- as much use as a handbrake on a canoe
- as much use as a screen door on a submarine
- as much use as a cat flap on a submarine
- as much use as a waterproof towel
- as much use as a dry day in the desert
- as much use as a glass hammer
- as useful as a paper boat
- as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike
- as useful as tits on a bull
- as useful as a politician’s promise
- as useful as a lead balloon
By the way, I made up a few of the sayings above. Can you guess which ones?
Equivalent phrases in other languages include:
- Polish: potrzebny jak dziura w moście = needed like a hole in a bridge
- Scottish Gaelic: cho feumail ri pàillean am fàsach = as useful as a palace in a wilderness
- Vietnamese: cơn bão trong tách trà = a storm in a teacup
Do you know any others?
Incidentally, according to BBC News, chocolate teapots might not be as usesful as they are reputed to be.
Sources: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/useful_as_a_chocolate_teapot
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/useful_as_a_chocolate_teapot
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/104958/origin-of-as-useful-as-a-chocolate-teapot-fireguard
https://www.powerthesaurus.org/as_much_use_as_a_chocolate_teapot/synonyms
Language Quiz
Yexing
Have you yexed recently? If you have, what did you do to stop your yexes?
The word yex [jɛks] sounds like a made-up word you might find in a children’s book or linguistic experiment – the wug is yexing, yesterday it yex__. However, it is, in fact, a genuine English word, though archaic. As a noun, it means a hiccough / hiccup, belch or burp, and as a verb, it means to hiccough, belch or burp [source].
The verb to yex comes from Middle English yexen [ˈjɛksən] (to hiccough, belch, yawn, gulp, swallow convulsively, gasp, sob) from Old English ġiscian [ˈjis.ki.ɑn] (to sigh, sob), from Proto-West Germanic *giskōn (to gasp, yawn, gulp), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵeys- (gaping, cracked) [source].
The noun yex comes from Middle English yexe / ȝ(e)oxe (the condition of having the hiccoughs), from Old English ġeocsa [ˈjes.kɑ] (sobbing, hiccough), which comes from the same roots as the verb [source].
Words from the same roots include ye(e)sk (a hiccough, belch, the hiccoughs) and to yesk (to hiccough, belch, vomit) in Scots [source], and yux (to sob, weep loudly) in Yola [source].
Language Quiz
Bread Vans
What would you carry in a bread cart? It could be bread, but doesn’t have to be. Let’s find out more.
One word that came up in my Chinese lessons this week was 面包车 [麵包車] (miànbāochē) which can be literally translated as ‘bread vehicle / cart’. According to the MDBG Chinese dictionary, it means a van for carrying people or a taxi minibus. According to Wiktionary, it means a vehicle for delivering bread, or a minibus or van (chiefly in Mainland China).
Other words for van in Chinese include:
- 货车 [貨車] (huòchē) = truck, van, freight train, goods train, goods wagon
- 厢式车 [廂式車] (xiāngshìchē) = van
- 小型货车 [小型貨車] (xiǎoxínghuòchē) = light van
- 廂型車 [厢型车] (xiāngxíngchē) = minivan, van (used in Taiwan)
In Japanese, 貨車 (kasha) is also used, and means a freight train, a train car used to carry freight, or a van [source].
Incidentally, the word van can refer to: a covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than 10) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus [source].
It’s short for caravan, which comes from Middle French caravane (caravan – a group of travellers, merchants, and pilgrims, gathered together to cross the desert more safely), from Old French carvane, from Persian کاروان (kârvân – caravan, convoy), from Middle Persian kʾlwʾn’ (kārawān), from Old Persian 𐎣𐎠𐎼 (k-a-r – the people, subjects, army), from Proto-Iranian *kā́rah (army, crowd), from Proto-Indo-European *kór-o-s, from *ker- (army) [source].
The word vanguard (The leading units at the front of an army or fleet; The person(s) at the forefront of any group or movement) is not related. Instead, it comes from vandgard / (a)vantgard, from Old French avant-garde (the vanguard of an army or other force). This is also the root of the word avant-garde, which in English can refer to any group of people who invent or promote new techniques or concepts, especially in the arts. While in French, it can refer to the vanguard (of an army), or the avant-garde as in English [source].
guard’s van
A vanguard should not be confused with a guard’s van, which in the UK and Ireland can refer to a van or carriage, or part of one, on a train occupied by the guard, that can be used as storage space for parcels, bicycles, large pieces of luggage, etc. Such things are rarely found on modern passenger trains in the UK, though there may be a small cubbyhole for the train manager (formerly known as the guard), and/or storage space for bicycles on some trains [source].
By the way, the day this post was posted, 26th March 2026, marks exactly 20 years since I started this blog on 26th March 2006. Since then, I have posted 3,963 posts here, 3.8 per week on average, and plan to continue doing so. I realised this after posting this, and thought I’d mention it.