Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
By the way, this is a short recording, and the only one I could find for this language.
Category: Language
Mouchard
One of the words that came up last night in the French conversation group was mouchard, which means an informant and various other things. I thought I’d look into it in more detail here.
Mouchard [mu.ʃaʁ] can mean:
- a snitch, grass or tell-tale (police informant) – also known as indic, cafteur or cafard in French
- a bug (hidden microphone)
- a spyhole or peephole
- a tachograph (device that records the distance and time traveled by a vehicle)
- (a piece of) spyware
- a spyplane
- a black box, flight recorder
It comes from mouche (a fly, bullseye, historically: a spy employed by the ancien régime to seek out subversive ideas) and -ard (pejorative suffix), from Middle French mousche (a fly), from Old French m(o)usche (a fly) [source], from Latin musca (a fly, an inquisitive or prying person) , from Proto-Indo-European *mu(s)/*mews- (fly). Words from the same roots include midge in English and Mücke (midge, gnat, crane fly, mosquito) in German [source].
Related words include:
- mouchardage = informing, grassing, ratting
- moucharder = to rat (on), to tell tales
The French word mouchard has also been borrowed into English, and means an undercover investigator or a police spy, especially in a French-speaking country, or an inverted compass hanging above the captain’s bed. The activity of such people is known mouchardism [source].
Other fly-related expressions in French include:
- faire mouche = to hit the bullseye, to come off, to hit home, to hit the nail on the head
- mouche de coche = back-seat driver (person who pretends to be useful by offering unsolicited advice or by running around without actually doing any work)
- pattes de mouche = scrawl, chicken scratch (illegible handwriting)
- prendre la mouche = to get offended, to get in a huff, to fly off the handle [source]
Are there interesting equivalents of mouchard in other languages?
Language Quiz
Pouring Rain
Yesterday it rained quite a lot here in the UK, and rather heavily at times. This got me thinking about the saying it never rains but it pours.
This expression means unfortunate events occur in quantity or misfortunes never come singly. A related saying is bad things come in threes. Fortunately this wasn’t the case for me yesterday, apart from a few minor delays and disruptions on the trains I took [source].
It never rains but it pours can apparently also refer to good things happening all at once or to excess, though I suspect the negative meaning is more common. It first appears in It Cannot Rain But It pours, an article by Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope in Prose Miscellanies, and in It cannot Rain but it Pours OR, London ſrowʼd [strowed] with Rarities, a book by John Arbuthnot published in 1726 [source].
There are similar expressions in other languages, including some that refer to rain:
- 屋漏偏逢连夜雨 [屋漏偏逢連夜雨] (wū lòu piān féng liányè yǔ) = (if your) house leaks, it tends to rain all night long (Mandarin Chinese)
- Nuair a thig cith tig balc = when the rain comes, a downpour comes (Irish)
- Piove sul bagnato = it rains on the wet (Italian)
- 降れば土砂降り (fureba doshaburi) = if it rains, it will be a downpour (Japanese)
- Cuando llueve, diluvia = when it rains, it pours (Spanish)
- När det regnar så öser det ner = when it rains, it pours down (Swedish)
In some languages such sayings mean something like ‘misfortunes do not come alone’ or ‘a misfortune seldom comes alone’:
- En ulykke kommer sjældent alene = a misfortune seldom comes alone (Danish)
- Un malheur ne vient jamais seul = a misfortune never comes alone (French)
- Bėda viena nevaikšto = trouble does not come alone (Lithuanian)
- Nieszczęścia chodzą parami = misfortunes walk in pairs (Polish)
- Helynt ni ddaw ei hunan = trouble does not come by itself (Welsh)
- Hakuna msiba usiokuwa na mwenziwe = there is no tragedy without a companion (Swahili)
Here a few other examples that don’t mention rain or misfortune:
- Ar ein skriðan er lopin er onnur væntandi = when one landslide is over, another is waiting (Faroese)
- Sjaldan er ein báran stök = rarely is a single bear alone (Icelandic)
- Nuair a thig air duine, thig air uile = when it befalls one, it befalls all (Scottish Gaelic)
Language Quiz
Bons mots
What connects bons mots with mottos and muttering? Let’s find out.
A bon mot [bɒn məʊ / bɑn moʊ] in English means a clever saying, a phrase or witticism or a witty riposte in dialogue. It comes from French bon mot [bɔ̃ mo], which means the same thing, or literally “good word”. You can also find bon mot in Dutch, Indonesian and other languages [source].
The word mot [mo] in French means a word, note, (short) message or the answer to an enigma. It comes from Middle French mot (word), from Old French mot (word), from Late Latin muttum (a mutter, grunt), from muttīre (to mutter, murmur, talk quietly) from muttiō (to mutter, murmer), which is of onomatopoeic origin and signifies “make a mu-noise” [source].
Other French expressions featuring mot include:
- demi-mot = a hint (“half-word”)
- fin mot = the real story, the (whole) truth (“final word”)
- gros mot = dirty word, swear word (“coarse / rough word”)
- grand mot = a strong word, strong term (“big-word”)
- demi-mot = a hint (“half-word”)
- mot d’esprit = a witticism, bon mot (“word of spirit / wit”)
- dernier mot = last word
Other words from the same roots possibly include mot (word) in Catalan, motto and mutter in English, mote (nickname, motto) in Spanish, Motto (motto, slogan) in German and motto (philosophy, motto, watchword, byword) in Polish [source].
By the way, the plural of bon mot in French is bons mots, but in English it can be bon mots or bons mots. What about in other languages?
Language Quiz
Silly Madness
The word mishegoss came up in a book I’m reading at the moment, and I had no idea what it meant, so I thought I’d find out.
Mishegoss [ˌmɪʃəˈɡɒs / ˈmɪʃəɡɒs] is apparently a slang term meaning madness or silliness. It comes from the Yiddish word משוגעת (meshugas), which means craziness, madness, nonsense, crazy talk, senseless activity, irrationality, craze, fad or quirk. That word comes from Yiddish משוגע (meshuge – crazy), from Hebrew משוגע (m’shugá – mad, crazy, insane), from שיגע (shigéa – to drive crazy) [source].
Words from the same roots include mișegos (petty) in Romanian, мишигас [mʲɪʂɨˈɡas] (maddness, insanity) in Russian, мешигос (mešyhós – maddness) in Ukrainian, mesüge (crazy) in Hungarian, and meshugge (crazy, mad, senseless, insane) in English [source].
I think I’ve heard or seen the word meshugge before, though I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time. Apparently it’s been used in English since at least 1880 [source]. Is it mainly used in American English?
Some related words in English include:
- mashugana = nonsense, silliness, craziness, garbage; a person who is silly or crazy
- meshugaas = nonsense, rubbish, craziness, a chaotic state of affairs, a mess
- meshuggener = crazy, insane; a madman, a crazy person, a nutter
Do you use any of these words?
Language Quiz
Pages, Pagans & Peasants
Are the words page, pagan, peasant and pheasant related? Let’s find out.
Page [peɪdʒ], as in ‘one of the many pieces of paper bound together within a book or similar document’ (other meanings are available) comes from Middle French page, from Latin pāgina (a written page, leaf, sheet), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (to fasten, fix), which is possibly related to the idea of papyrus sheets fastened to each other, or from fastening / imprinting letters [source].
Words from the same Latin root include página (page) in Spanish, página (page, website) in Portuguese, pagina (page) in Italian, page (page, web page, page boy) in French, and pagină (page) in Romanian [source].
Pagan [ˈpeɪɡən] (Relating to, characteristic of religions that differ from main world religions; savage, immoral, uncivilized, wild.) comes from Middle English pagan, from Latin pāgānus (rural, rustic, unlearned), from pāgus (district, region, countryside, countryfolk) from Proto-Italic *pāgos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (to fasten, fix) – perhaps related to fixing boundaries [source].
Words from the same Latin roots include paúl (moor, heath) and peño (foundling) in Spanish, pegno (pledge, security, token) in Italian, pau (stick, wood) in Portuguese, pale, impale, pole, peasant, travail and travel in English, and pow (country, land, region) in Cornish [source].
So page, pagan and peasant are related. What about pheasant?
Pheasant [ˈfɛzənt] (A bird of family Phasianidae) comes from Middle English fesa(u)nt (pheasant), from Old French faisan (pheasant), from Latin phāsiānus, (pheasant), from Ancient Greek φασιανός (phasianós – pheasant), from Φᾶσῐς (Phâsĭs), a river in Greece from where, it was supposed, pheasants spread to the west [source].
So pheasant is not related to page, pagan or peasant.
Incidentally, in Old English, one word for pheasant was worhana, which was also written uuorhana or morhana. It comes from the Proto-Germanic words *wurzô (grouse) and *hanō (cock, rooster), and is possibly related to the modern English word moorhen [source].