Squibs and squabs

By Simon

When an event is not very successful, you could say that it went off like a damp squib, or even a damp squid, as a friend mistakenly said last night.

A squib is obviously something that does not work properly when it’s wet, and I had an idea that it was some kind of explosive.

According to Reverso, a squib is:

1. a firework
2. a firework that does not explode because of a fault; dud
3. a short witty attack; lampoon
4. an electric device for firing a rocket engine
5. an insignificant person (obsolete)
6. a coward (Aus/NZ slang)

And a damp squib is “something intended but failing to impress”.

Etymology: probably imitative of a quick light explosion.

An unrelated, but similar-sounding word is squab, which is:

1. a young unfledged bird, esp. a pigeon
2. a short fat person
3. a well-stuffed bolster or cushion; a sofa
4. (of birds) recently hatched and still unfledged
5. short and fat

Etymology: probably of Germanic origin; compare Swedish dialect sqvabb (flabby skin), sqvabba (fat woman), German Quabbe (soft mass), Norwegian kvabb (mud)

Source: http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/squab

Squib, squab and squid are all good words for Scrabble.

Are there equivalents of damp squibs in other languages?

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
la fiche flash card cerdyn fflach
le dispositif d’écoute; le micro caché bug (listening device)
le bogue bug (computer) nam; diffyg
le virus; le microbe bug (germ) byg; clust
l’insecte (m); la bestiole bug (insect) pryf
mangeable edible (palatable) bwytadwy
comestible edible (safe to eat) da i’w fwyta
tremper to dunk gwlychu; trochi
trempé soaked gwlyb
trempé jusqu’aux os soaked to the skin gwlyb diferol; gwlyb diferol; gwlyb at y croen
un pétard mouillé damp squib matsien wleb
le pigeonneau squab (baby pigeon) cyw colomen
le fruit de l’imagination figment of the imagination dychmygu pethau; ffrwyth eich dychymyg

eesti keel

By Simon

Last night I had an interesting chat with an Estonian student who is studying in Bangor about Estonia and the Estonian language. I knew a little about the language already, but realised that I didn’t know any words or phrases in Estonian, apart from its native name – eesti keel – and I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce that: [eːsti.keːl].

When I meet someone who speaks a language I haven’t studied, yet, quite often I know at least how to say hello or other phrases in their language, which usually impresses them, but I haven’t met any Estonians before, as far as I remember, and on this occasion I couldn’t think of a single word. I had an idea that hello was something like terve, but wasn’t sure – this is actually hello in Finnish. In Estonian it’s tere. So now I do know a few words in Estonian.

One thing we talked about was the number of Russian speakers in Estonia – they make up about 20% of the population – and the fact that Estonia is quite a good place to learn Russian. I have considered this, and if I were to do a Russian language course there, I would try to learn some Estonian as well.

Do you try to use whatever you know of a language when you meet someone who speaks it, even if you only know a word or two?

Wysinnwyg

By Simon

The other day I listened to a programme on BBC Radio 4 with an unusual title – Wysinnwyg. When I first saw the title of immediately thought it was a Welsh word, although not one I’d come across before, and I tried to work out what it might mean. I couldn’t find it in any Welsh dictionary, so assumed it was a made-up word. After listening to the programme I realised it was a variation on wysiwyg (what you see is what you get), which also looks Welsh, and means “what you see is not necessarily what you get”.

There aren’t very many Welsh words that start with w, in fact, and many of them are loanwords from English. Here are some examples:

– waldio [ˈʊaldɪɔ] = to beat, to thrash
– wb [ʊb] / wbwb [ˈʊbʊb] = wi! oh! alas!
– wedi[ˈʊɛdɪ] = after
– wedyn [ˈʊɛdɨn] = afterwards
– weithiau [ˈʊɛɪθɪaɨ] = sometimes
– wele [ˈʊɛlɛ] = behold!
– wfft [ʊft] = fie! for shame!
– wfftian [ˈʊftɪan] = to flout
– wit-wat [ˈʊɪtʊat] = fickle
– wtio [ˈʊtɪɔ] = to boo
– wrth [ʊrθ] = by, with, to, compared with, because
– wy [ʊɨ] = egg
– wyneb [ˈʊɨnɛb] = face, surface
– wyth [ʊɨθ] = eight
– wythnos [ˈʊɨθnɔs] = week (eight-night)

Do you ever see acronyms or made-up words and think they are from a particular language? Or see words in one language and think they’re really from another language?

Whenever I see words with w’s and y’s and double l’s I think of Welsh. So Amarillo looks like a Welsh place name to me.

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
la charnière; le gond hinge colyn; colfach; crogfach
le pot-de-vin bribe llwgrwobrwy; llwgrwobr; cil-dwrn
acheter; soudoyer; offirir des pots-de-vin to bribe llygru; prynu; llwgrwobrwyo; rhoi cil-dwrn
la corruption; la subornation bribery llwgrwobrwyaeth; llwgrwobrwyad
la corruption corruption llygredd; llygredigaeth
corrompu(e) corrupt (person) llygredig; llwgr
corrompre to corrupt llygru; difetha
le robinet à flotteur ball-cock tap pelen
l’accent (m) emphasis (vocal stress) pwyslais; pwys
le mot composé compound word gair cyfansawdd; cyfansoddair
le mot-valise portmanteau word cyfansoddair cywasgedig

New languages to learn?

By Simon

Recently I have acquired quite a few new language courses: as a sponsor of the Polyglot Conference in New York I received 10 new Colloquial language courses in Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Russian. I also bought a Glossika Russian course with the special offer given to conference participants, and bought a Basque course from Assimil with affiliate commission from Amazon France.

My new language courses

I learnt a little Hungarian many years ago, and am currently working on Czech and Russian, but haven’t studied any of the other languages before. I’d love to know at least the basics of all of them, though have no particular need or desire to learn them at the moment. Also, I already have courses in a number of languages that I have only glanced at so far – Arabic, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots and Cornish.

Do you sometimes get carried away with acquiring language courses and other materials?

Do you think you will get round to learn all those languages one day?

Untranslatable?

By Simon

Recently I was sent a link to an infographic containing some apparently untranslatable words for love, and this got me wondering if there really is such a thing as an ‘untranslatable’ word or concept.

The words featured in lists of ‘untranslatable’ words are often given poetic-sounding meanings, and other more ordinary and common meanings they have are ignored.

In some languages a single word might represent a meaning that translates as a phrase in other languages, and there are some culture concepts which can be hard to translate – that is the words themselves can be translated but the meanings they represent might be specific to a particular culture.

The Dutch word gezelligheid (“the warmth of being with loved ones”), is an example from the infographic, which has an equivalent in German: geborgenheit, so it isn’t completely untranslatable.

Are there any words in languages you know that you believe to be untranslatable?

Pip pip!

By Simon

In English, at least the English I speak, the seeds you find in fruit have different names depending on the kind of fruit. Those found in citrus fruit, grapes, apples and pears I would call pips, while those found in peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries and apricots and similar kinds of fruit I would call stones. The seeds found in soft fruit like raspberries, blackberries and strawberries I would call seeds.

What names do you use?

Do you have a counting rhyme for the pips/seeds/stones?

The one I know is “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” – whichever one you end on is what you’re going to be. Do such rhymes exist in other languages?

Apparently peaches, plums and similar fruit are known as drupe or stone fruit, which have fleshy part consisting of skin (exocarp) and flesh (mesocarp) surrounding a hard shell (a.k.a. pit, stone, pyrene) which contains a seed or kernel. Raspberries and blackberries are made up of multiple small drupes, or drupelets [source].