No holds barred

By Simon

I came across the phrase no holds barred today and wondered where it came from. I probably have seen it written down before, but didn’t pay any particular attention to it and thought it was written no holes barred.

According The Phrase Finder, this phrase comes from wrestling and refers to wrestling matches in which the normal rules are suspended – that is any hold is allowed, and no holds are barred. It first appeared in print in around 1892. Before then wrestling matches were not subject to any rules and there was no need for such a phrase.

Related phrases include anything goes and carte blanche. Can you think of any others?

The phrase carte blanche comes from French, originally meant a military surrender, and was first written in 1707 [source].

Are there phrases with a similar meaning in other languages?

Hooley fuddle

By Simon

Ukulele Hooley logo

This weekend I am in Dún Laoghaire for the Ukulele Hooley, Ireland’s international ukulele festival. On the way here yesterday I met some ukulele players from Yorkshire and we had a bit of a jam on the boat, and another one last night with other people who are here for the Hooley.

While talking with the Yorkshire lot, the word fuddle came up, and I thought it was a made-up word, but apparently it is a genuine Yorkshire word for a meal at which each person contributes food – also known as a potluck dinner, spread, Jacob’s join, Jacob’s supper, faith supper, covered dish supper, dish party, bring and share, dutch, pitch-in, bring-a-plate, or dish-to-pass [source].

A hooley [ˈhuːli] is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries as “A wild or noisy party.” (informal, chiefly Irish). It is also a strong wind or gale, as in “it’s blowing a hooley” [source] and it’s origin is unknown.

Here’s a video from the Hooley featuring the Mersey Belles and others, with me in the background

Poor mean houses

By Simon

Cottages in Abergwyngregyn

On the bus to Conwy today I noticed that the Welsh name of one of the stops included the word teios, which I hadn’t come across before. In English the stop had the word cottages in it.

I wrote down what I thought I heard and saw: teilios, but couldn’t find that in any Welsh dictionary. When I looked for cottages however I found the word teios, which is a combination of tai (plural of tŷ, house) and the diminutive ending -os, which was most commonly-used in North Wales (in the 18th and 19th centuries), but spread to the rest of Wales, according to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.

Translations of teios include small or poor houses; poor mean houses; and mean pitiful houses.

Some of the buses round here have a screen at the front that shows the name of the next stop in Welsh and English, and there are recorded announcements in both languages as well. The English announcements were recorded by someone with an English accent who mispronounces the Welsh names – he gets the consonants more or less right, but the vowels are often slightly off, and the stress is sometimes in the wrong place. I don’t know why they didn’t ask the guy who does the Welsh announcements to do the English ones as well.

When I hear a language or words pronounced in unusual ways it tends to grate a bit on my ears, just as out-of-tune singing or musical instruments do. There’s nothing wrong with foreign accents, but sometimes they can make comprehension more difficult. I try to speak languages (and sing and play instruments) as in tune as possibly. Do you?

Put the kettle on!

By Simon

No kettles!

I discovered last night that although there is a French word for kettle – bouilloire – kettles are not common in French kitchens. More or less every kitchen in the UK, and Ireland, has a kettle, and a toaster (grille-pain) – they are considered essential equipment. However, according to a friend who used to live in France, French kitchens generally don’t have kettles, or toasters. Teapots are probably rare as well.

Is this true? What other things are normally found in kitchens where you live?

So even though there may be a word for something in another language, it might not be commonly-used (either the word or the thing it describes).

Here’s a tune I wrote called The Kettle / Y Tecell:

Here’s a nice whatabout

By Simon

In the comments on an article I read today in the Guardian – Why North Koreans are developing an appetite for foreign languages – I noticed an interesting turn of phrase:

Here’s a nice Whatabout. I suggest Brits suddenly get keen on learning foreign languages. Start with Arabic and Russian. Oh yes, and brush up on French too….

I hadn’t seen the expression Whatabout before so it caught my attention. Have you come across it before, or do you use it yourself?

The article mentions foreign language learning is compulsory for North Koreans from the age of 4 (they must start school early), and that the most popular languages to learn are Chinese (probably Mandarin) and English. Learning languages give students a better chance of getting into university, which leads to better job prospects, particular in foreign trade, which is increasing, and Chinese is also popular because they want to understand Chinese TV programmes. However relatively few North Koreans are able to go to university and few other people are likely to learn languages are the chances of using them are minimal.

Tell Me a Story!

By Simon

An fear ciúin / Seán O'Ceapaire

When I was in Ireland last week I heard plenty of stories, including some traditional ones in Irish. There was a night of sean-nós singing, dancing and story telling on Thursday, and afterwards we had a long talk with our sean-nós singing teacher, Gearóidín Breathnach, about various things, including the decline in traditional story telling, and how the Irish language is losing it’s richness, particularly it’s vocabulary.

Gearóidín is a singer and story teller who has passed on her songs and stories to her children, however many of the traditional story tellers in Ireland don’t have children and there are few people who want to learn the stories from them. As a result, traditional oral story telling is disappearing. Gearóidín also believes that people don’t have the patience to sit and listen to long stories any more.

I’ve been thinking about these things since then, and have come to the conclusion that although traditional story telling might be disappearing, we are all still interested in stories. These days we can get our stories from many sources – books, TV, films, computer games, magazines, newspapers, blogs, and each other. There are new kinds of stories and new kinds of story tellers, and many people spend hours every day watching their favourite TV soap operas, reading books and other material, chatting with friends, and generally taking in and sharing stories.

I usually have lunch in the café at the Folk Village (An Cláchán) in Glencolmcille, and in one corner of the café there is a manikin dressed in tweed, sitting at a table, with a pipe in one hand and a fiddle in the other (pictured top right). He used to sit by the fire in the gift shop, along with a female manikin dressed in traditional attire, however that fireplace has been removed and he now sits on his own in the café – I don’t know where the woman has got to.

One day I decided to make up a little story about him, and told it to some of my friends, who embellished it. The man, who I call an fear ciúin (the quiet man) or Seán O’Ceapaire (John Sandwich), came into the café on his way to a music session in 1967, ordered a cup of coffee, and is still waiting for it. Since then he’s met Nora, who works in the kitchen and who he married, and they’ve had five children and 25 grandchildren. When Seán came to the café he didn’t speak a word of Irish, and Nora spoke no English, but now Seán speaks Irish fluently, and Nora has learnt English. There were other details that my friends added, but I don’t remember them all.

Are there any traditional story tellers you know, or have heard of? Is there a tradition of oral story telling where you are, and is it still alive (practised, and passed from generation to generation)?

Learn Korean for free!

By Simon

90 Day Korean

90 Day Korean have an exclusive offer for Omniglot visitors: three free Korean courses.

The 90 Day Korean web course teaches to you how to have a three minute conversation with a native Korean within 90 days. It’s a beginner Korean course that delivers you PDF and mp3 lessons in your inbox every week with only the essential parts of the language, all explained using psychology and stories so you can’t forget them (even if you tried).

Two winners will receive 90 Day Korean web course scholarships for 30 days. One grand prize winner will receive a 90 Day Korean web course scholarship for 90 days.

The first three people to answer the following questions correctly will receive the scholarships.

1. When was the Korean alphabet invented?
2. What is the second largest city in South Korea?
3. How many hanja do people in South Korea have to learn at school?

Please write to me at feedback[at]omniglot[dot]com with your name and the answers. Do not post them in the comments.

Update
We have a winners of all the courses, so this competition is now finished.