Category: Latin (Lingua Latina)

Taking the fly

By Simon

I discovered an interesting French idiom today – prendre la mouche – which means literally ‘to take the fly’ and is the equivalent of ‘to go off in a huff’. Huff refers to ‘a passing mood of anger or pique’ A French equivalent of ‘to be in a huff’ is être vexé. Are there similar expressions in other languages?

La mouche means fly, button or patch comes from the Latin mŭsca (fly)

Here are some other expressions featuring this word:

– bateau-mouche = pleasure boat (on the Seine)
– fine mouche = sharp customer
– oiseau-mouche = hummingbird (‘fly bird’)
– pattes de mouche = spidery scrawl (‘fly paws’)
– poids mouche = flyweight
– papier tue-mouche = flypaper
– mouche du coche = back-seat driver (‘coach fly’)
– mouche à miel = honey bee (‘honey fly’)
– faire mouche = bull’s-eye

Source: http://dictionary.reverso.net/

Knowledge and seeing

By Simon

I discovered today that there is a connection between the Gaelic word for knowledge, information, news – fios in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, fys in Manx – and the English words video and wit.

Their roots can all be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root woid-/wid- (to see/to know), which, according to the OED, is also the root of words such as the Sanskrit वेदा (veda – knowledge); the Latin vidēre to see); the Welsh gwybod (to know); the Lithuanian véidas (face); and the Greek ἰνδάλλεσθαι (to appear).

The Irish and Scottish Gaelic word fios is also related to the word fionn (white, fair, pale; sincere, true, certain; small; fine, pleasant), which is how I discovered this while putting together a new page of Scottish Gaelic colours – you can see how easily I get distracted. This doesn’t worry me as it’s all very interesting.

La gueule enfarinée

By Simon

I discovered an interesting French expression yesterday while ferreting around in the dictionary – la gueule enfarinée, which literally means ‘the floured mouth’, but actually refers to someone who is ‘wet behind the ears’, i.e. new, untrained, inexperienced, immature, innocent, callow or naive (synonyms from The Chambers Thesaurus).

The word gueule usually refers to the mouth of an animal, and is also a slang word for the human mouth, which is normally bouche. Equivalent words in English include gob, mug, snout, cakehole, kisser, trap, etc – do you have any others? It comes from the Old French gole, from the Latin gula (gullet, throat, gluttony, palate), which is also the root of the English word gullet.

Why having a floury mouth is a sign of being inexperienced is a mystery to me. Does anyone know the origins of this expression?

Docent

By Simon

I came across an unfamiliar word today in a book I’m reading – docent. From the context I guessed it referred to someone who leads guided tours, but according to my English dictionary it means ‘(in the U.S.) a lecturer in some colleges and universities’, and it comes from the German word Dozent (associate professor, tutor, academic, lecturer), from the Latin docēns, from docēre (to teach).

According to Wikipedia, ‘Docent is a title at some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks below professor (i.e. professor ordinarius). Docent is also used at some universities generically for a person who has the right to teach.’ It is used as an academic title in universities in a number of European countries.

There are also museum docents, who guide and educate visitors to museums and other institutions, usually voluntarily.

Have you come across the word docent before? What are such people called, if they exist, in your country?

In the UK they are known as guides.

Orientating oneself

By Simon

When visiting an unfamiliar place in order to find you way around it helps if you work out where you are in relation to particular landmarks and in which direction you’re facing. In order to use a map you need to know where north is so that you can hold the map the right way round. This process is known as getting ones bearings or orientating / orienting oneself. The verb orient(ate) means to to face or arrange things to face the east (orient) and comes, via French, from the Latin word orient (the eastern part of the world, the part of the sky in which the sun rises, the east, the rising sun, daybreak, dawn). These days we usually orientate ourselves by finding out where north is, so why do we use orient(ate)?

Recently I discovered, in On The Map: Why the world looks the way it does by Simon Garfield, that the use of orient(ate) comes from the the medieval practice of placing Jerusalem in the centre of maps, so lining them up involved making them face towards Jerusalem in the east.

The northern equivalent of orient is boreal (from the Greek βορέας – god of the north wind), so to ‘orientate’ oneself towards the north might be borealate – this word doesn’t exist, but the word borealize (to adopt northern manners or pronunciation) does.

There is also a verb occident, which means “to turn or direct towards the west; to place (a church) with the chancel at the western end.” The southern equivalent of orient is austral, and the verb to australize (to point southward) was once used in English, though no longer.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

Archerien

By Simon

An interesting word that came up in my Breton lesson today is archerien, which means police. It caught my attention because it has no obvious connection to the word police, and because it is completely different to the equivalent words in other Celtic languages:

– Welsh: heddlu (“peace force”)
– Cornish: kreslu (“peace host”)
– Irish: gardaí (síochána) (“guards of peace”); póilíní
– Manx: meoiryn shee (“peace keepers/stewards”); poleenyn
– Scottish Gaelic: poileas

The English word police comes from the French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (state, government), from the Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration, constitution). It is shares the same root as policy, politics, politician and various other words [source].

Many languages use variants on the word police, e.g. Politsei (Estonian), პოლიცია (polits’ia – Georgian), Polizei (German), पुलिस (pulis – Hindi), پلیس (pulis – Persian), Booliis (Somalia), Policía (Spanish), Pulis (Tagalog), but some do their own thing:

– Bavarian: Kibara
– Chinese: 警察 (jǐngchá); 公安 (gōng’ān)
– Faroese: Løgregla
– Greek: Αστυνομία (Astynomía)
– Hungarian: Rendőrség
– Icelandic: Lögregla
– Japanese: 警察 (keisatsu)
– Korean: 警察 (gyeongchal)
– Thai: ตำรวจ (tảrwc)

Are there other examples of languages with a word unrelated to police for police?

Pseudolanguages

By Simon

One way English speakers play with English is by making into Pig Latin. This involves move the first sound of each word to the end and adding “ay”; for example Pig Latin becomes Ig-pay atin-lay. If a word starts with a vowel you might add hey, way or yay to the end. This creates a sort of pseudolanguage that sounds vaguely like Latin and can be used as a secret code, or just for fun.

I found an article today about language games like this in other languages.

I knew about Pig Latin, though had never played with, and about Verlan in French, but not about the equivalents in other languages. Have you played any of these games? Do you know of any others?

Selective attention

By Simon

The other day an English guy who has lived in Wales for many years and who doesn’t speak Welsh told me that when he listens to people speaking Welsh, he hears lots of English words, words derived from English, and words from French or Latin, so he believes that Welsh is made up mainly of such words.

I suggested that such words just seemed to be prominent and ubiquitous because they are the only ones he understands, and that the majority of Welsh words are completely different, though they share the same ultimate roots as words in most other European languages.

He wasn’t convinced, and when asked for examples, could only think of a few: parcio (parking) and ffenestr (window) and pont (bridge).

I can understand why he’s convinced that there are lots of words of English, French and Latin origin in Welsh – selective attention. It’s like if someone says that you don’t see many yellow cars around, you will start to notice ever yellow car and might become convinced that they are more common than they really are.

Have you any mistaken impressions of languages you don’t know?

When I first heard spoken Irish I thought it was mainly made up of the occasional English word, plus lots of agus (and), and mumbling in an Irish accent. Now I know better.

Spench, spence and sbens

By Simon

Recently a friend told me that in North Wales the area under stairs is know as the spench – I hadn’t heard it before and didn’t know how to write it so this spelling is a guess. I found spench in the Urban Dictionary, which defines it as “the area under the stairs (often a cupboard) where things are stored. Used in North Wales.”

In the Geiriadur Mawr, one of my Welsh dictionaries, I found the Welsh word sbens, which is defined as “twll dan y grisiau” (a hole under the stairs) and is translated as spence.

The OED defines spence as “a room or separate place in which victuals and liquor are kept; a buttery or pantry; a cupboard.” and says that it is dialectal or archaic. It comes from the Old French word despense (to dispense), from the Latin word dispendere (to dispense, weigh out; pay out; open, spread out), from the Latin word pendere (to hang; depend; weigh out; pay) plus the prefix dis-.

Have you heard this word before, or do you have another word for the area/cupboard under the stairs?

Handles, sleeves, tails and legs

By Simon

Yesterday I discovered that there are quite a few different words for handle in French, depending on what kind of handle you’re referring to:

– poignée /pwa.ɲe/ is a door handle or the handle on the lid of something. It also means handful, as in une poignée de sel (a handful of salt) or Ils n’étaient qu’une poignée (There were only a handful of them). In can also refer to love handles (poignée d’amour) and a break handle (poignée de frein). [source]. It comes from poing /pwɛ̃/ (fist), from the Latin pugnus (fist) [source].

– anse /ɑ̃s/ is the handle of a cup, or a cove, and comes from the Latin ansa (handle, tiller).

The Welsh equivalents are dolen (bow, handle, link, loop, ear, noose) and trontol (handle).

– manche /mɑ̃ʃ/ is the handle of a tool or a saucepan, and also a sleeve, or neck (of a violin or guitar).

The Welsh equivalents are coes (leg, stalk, handle) and carn (hoof, hilt, handle).

– queue /kø/ = is the handle of a frying pan, and also a tail, stalk and queue (line of people). It comes from the Latin word coda, a variant of cauda (tail) [source].

Are handles metaphorically linked to the same words in other languages?