The other day I came across the Spanish word aguafiestas. I guessed it had something to do with water, (agua) and parties (fiestas), so could mean something like ‘water parties’.
In fact it means party pooper, wet blanket, spoilsport, killjoy or buzzkill, or in other words, a person who takes the fun out of a situation or activity. The fiestas part does refer to parties, but the agua part comes from the verb aguar (to water, water down, spoil, mar), so aguafiestas is someone who spoils parties by figuratively pouring water on them.
Related words and expressions include:
aguar la fiesta = to put a damper on things, spoil the fun, rain on sb’s parade
aguado = watery, flaccid, weak, boring, stale
aguadito = a kind of soup
desaguar = to drain
The opposite of una aguafiestas is el alma de la fiesta (the life and soul of the party).
If you’re neither una aguafiestas nor el alma de la fiesta, maybe you comes pavo (“eat turkey”) or eres la fea del baile (“are the ugly one at the dance”), or in other words, you’re a bit of a wallflower*.
*A person who does not dance at a party, due to shyness or unpopularity; by extension, anyone who is left on the sidelines while an activity takes place. Any person who is socially awkward, shy, or reserved.
I can be a bit of a wallflower at times, and even wrote a song about it called Two Left Feet:
One of the interesting words that was mentioned on the Words Unravelled podcast that I listened to today was taradiddle, which apparently means a little white lie.
According to Wiktionary, taradiddle (or tarradiddle) means a trivial lie, a fib, silly talk or writing, or humbug.
It possibly comes from diddle (to cheat, swindle, waste time, etc.), which might come from duddle, a dialect word meaning to trick, and/or diddle / duddle (to totter), from Middle English dideren (to shake, quiver, tremble) and bididren (to seduce, deceive), from Old English bedidrian, bedyderian (to trick, deceive) [source].
A diddle is also something that drummers do involving two consecutive notes played by the same hand. Related drumming terms include paradiddle, which involves playing four even strokes in the order ‘right left right right’ or ‘left right left left’ [source], and paradiddle-diddle, which involves playing six even strokes in the order ‘right left right right left left’ or ‘left right left left right right’ [source].
Another diddlesome word is diddle-daddle, which means to dilly-dally, shilly-shally, dawdle, waste time or procrastinate, something I’m quite good at [source].
Incidentally, shilly-shally is a reduplication of ‘Shall I?”, and used to be Shill-I-shall-I [source].
In one of the Spanish lessons I did on Duolingo this morning, I came across the interesting word muchedumbre, and thought I’d write a post about it.
Muchedumbre [mutʃeˈðumbɾe] means crowd, throng, multitude, mob, herd, or flock (of birds). It comes from Old Spanish muchedumne, muchidumne, from Latin multitūdinem (a great number [of people], multitude, numerousness, crowd, mob, throng), from multus (much, many), from Proto-Italic *moltos (much, many), from Proto-Indo-European *ml̥tós (crumbled, crumpled), from *mel- (to worry, be late, hesitate) [source].
Words from the same roots possibly include mejor (better, best), muy (very), mucho (much, a lot of, many) and multitud (multitude, crowd, a lot, loads) in Spanish, multitude in English, and mieux (better, best) in French [source].
Incidentally, if you’re keen on crowds, you might like to darse un baño de multitudes (to mingle with the crowd) [source], or darse un baño de masas (to go on a walkabout) [source]. Un baño de masas can also mean ‘to walk into the crowd (by a famous person)’ [source]. This might attract una muchedumbre de admiradores (a crowd of admirers).
I tend to avoid crowds, which isn’t difficult living in a small city in the wilds of north Wales. How about you?
In this post, we’re discussing things jentacular and prandial.
You may have heard of the words preprandial (occurring before a meal, especially dinner) and/or postprandial (after a meal, especially after dinner), how about prandial or jentacular?
Prandial means “Of or pertaining to a meal, especially dinner.” It comes from Late Latin prandialis, or from Latin prandium (late breakfast; lunch, any meal, fodder), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pr̥h₂mós (first) and *h₁ed- (to eat) [source].
Words from the same roots include pranzo (lunch or dinner) in Italian, pranzu (dinner, lunch) in Maltese, and prânz (lunch, noon, midday) in Romanian [source].
Jentacular is an archaic word that means “Of or pertaining to breakfast; specifically, one taken early in the morning or immediately upon getting up.” It comes from Latin iēntāculum (breakfast), from ientō (I breakfast), a form of ieientō (to eat breakfast), from Proto-Italic *jagjentō, from PIE *h₁yaǵ- (to sacrifice, worship) [source].
Words from the same roots include diner, dinner and jejune (lacking matter, naive, simplistic) in English, jantar (dinner, to dine) in Portuguese, xantar (dinner, lunch) in Galician, déjeuner (to [eat/have] lunch, to have breakfast) in French [source].
Apparently in ancient Rome, the first meal of the day, which was eaten at about sunrise, was called iēntāculum. It usually consisted of bread, fruit or leftovers from the night before. At around noon, people would have a light meal called prandium, and at about sunset they had their main meal or cēna (dinner, supper). They may have had another light meal later in the evening as well. Originally, the main meal was eaten at midday, but later moved to later in the day [source].
Are there interesting meal-related words in other languages?
I spent last week in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland learning some more Irish, and learning about the area where I was, Glencolmcille (Gleann Cholm Cille in Irish). I had a great time, met some interesting people, and saw some beautiful places.
In previous years I’ve done courses there in Irish language, harp and bodhrán playing, and Irish sean-nós singing. I always enjoy my time there, which is why I keep going back. Most of the people there were from Ireland, and there were also people from the USA, UK, France, Canada, Portugal, Austria and Russia.
So, as well as practising my Irish, I got to speak other languages like French, German and Japanese. In class our teacher also taught as a few interesting words in Ulster Scots.
These include:
gollumpus = an ungainly person; a large, loutish, uncoordinated person
gomeral = a fool, simpleton lout
glype, glipe = a stupid and annoying person
clart = mud, mire; a lump or clot of something disagreeable or distasteful; a big, dirty, untidy person
Gomeral is a diminutive of Middle English gōme (man, warrior, husband, male servant), from Old English guma (male, hero), from Proto-Germanic *gumô (man, person), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰmṓ (man, person) [source].
Clart comes from Middle English *clart, from biclarten (to cover or smear with dirt) [source].
I’m not sure where the other words come from.
One thing we did in class was to come up with some new proverbs in Irish. Incidentally, the Irish word for proverb is seanfhocal, which literally means “old word”. So here are a few new old words:
Ní aon maitheas an chomhad a shabháil agus an riomhaire múchta agat. There’s no good in saving the file when you’ve turned off the computer.
Ní léiríonn solas an scáileáin bealach éinne. The light of the screen shows no one the way.
Is fearr traein amháin ná míle gluaisteán. One train is better than 1,000 cars.
I’m off to Ireland tomorrow for a week of learning Irish and learning about the landscape of Glencolumcile (Gleann Cholm Cille) in Donegal. I’ve been there many times before – every year from 2005 to 2019, but this is the first since then. I’ll probably see quite a few people I know, and meet some new ones as well, and I’m looking forward to it.
I rarely get to speak much Irish in Bangor. There are a few Irish speakers here, and we conversations in Irish occasionally. Apart from that, I sometimes listen to Irish songs and Irish language radio, and have been brushing up my Irish on Duolingo recently.
While I’m there, I probably won’t have a lot of time to work on Omniglot. Normal service will resume after I get back.
Greetings fellow Earthlings and anyone else who might be reading this. Did you know that this word originally meant farmer?
These days in Science Fiction, an Earthling is “an inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of another planet; specifically, a sentient member of any species native to Earth.”
In the 17th century is referred to “A person who is materialistic or worldly; a worldling.” and in the 16th century, it referred to “An inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of heaven.” [source]
Going back further, it meant one who tills the earth, a farmer, a husbandman or a ploughman. It comes from Middle English erthling (farmer, ploughman), from Old English ierþling, eorþling (farmer, husbandman, ploughman), from eorþe (ground, dirt, planet Earth), from PIE *h₁er- (earth) [source]
Other interesting words suffixed with -ling include:
puffling = a young puffin
princeling = a minor or unimportant prince
sportling = a little person or creature engaged in sports or in play
shaveling = someone with all or part of their head shaved, notably a tonsured clergyman; a priest or monk (often derogatory).
wildling = a wild plant or animal
witling = a person who feigns wit, pretending or aspiring to be witty, a person with very little wit.
godling = a young god, a minor divinity, a local or inferior god, a.k.a. godlet, godkin
There’s also underling (a subordinate or person of lesser rank or authority), and it’s rare antonym overling (a superior, ruler, master) [source]
Foods, and the words that describe them, can travel around the world. For example, tea comes from China, and so do words for tea in many languages. Similarly, avocado, chocolate, tamale, tomato come from Mexico (both the words and the foods).
Those words came to Europe from other continents, and I recently discovered some words that travelled from Europe, or Western Asia, to many other parts of the world.
It started with the Proto-Indo-European word *médʰu (honey, mead), which spread throughout Europe and Asia, and possibly as far as China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam [source].
Descendants of *médʰu include:
մեղու [meʁú] = bee in Armenian
мед (med) = honey in Bulgarian
mõdu [mjøːd] = mead in Estonian
Met [meːt] = mead in German
μέθη (méthi) = drunkenness in Greek
מותק (mótek) = sweetness in Hebrew
मॊदुर / مۆدُر (modur) = sweet, tasty, delicious in Kashmiri
medus [mædus] = honey, mead in Latvian
މީރު [miː.ɾu] = pleasant, sweet, agreeable, savoury in Maldivian
medveď [ˈmɛdvɛc] = bear (“honey-eater”) in Slovak
mjöd [mjøːd] = mead in Swedish
மதுரம் [mɐd̪ʊɾɐm] = sweetness in Tamil
medd [meːð] = mead, and meddw [ˈmɛðu] = drunk in Welsh
The Irish name Méabh (Maeve) also comes from the same roots, via Middle Irish medb (intoxicating) [source]. For more details of related words in Celtic languages, see this Celtiadur post: Honey Wine
It also reached China, where it became mīt (honey) in Tocharian B, and was possibly borrowed into Old Chinese as *mit (honey), which became 蜜 (mì – honey) in Mandarin, 蜜 (mat6 [mɐt˨] – bee, honeybee) in Cantonese, 蜜 (mitsu – honey, nectar, moasses, syrup) in Japanese, 밀 (mil – beeswax) in Korean, and mật (honey, molasses) and mứt (jam) in Vietnamese [source].
Someone who is supercilious is arrogantly superior, haughty or shows contemptuous indifference.
Supercilious comes from the Latin superciliōsus (haughty, supercilious) from supercilium (eyebrow, will, pride, haughtiness, arrogance, sterness, superciliousness) from super- (above, over) and cilium ( eyelid), from Proto-Italic *keljom, from PIE *ḱel-yo-m, from *ḱel- (to cover) [source].
Equivalents of supercilious in other languages include:
hooghartig (“high-hearted”) = haughty, supercilious in Dutch
hochnäsig (“high-nosed”) = snooty, stuck-up, haughty, supercilious, arrogant in German
kione-ard (“high-head”) = arrogant, chieftain, haughty, presumptuous, supercilious in Manx
ffroenuchel (“high-nostril”) = haughty, disdainful, supercilious in Welsh
The word cilium also exists in English, and means:
A short microscopic hairlike organelle projecting from a eukaryotic cell, which serve either for propulsion by causing currents in the surrounding fluid or as sensors.
One of the fine hairs along an insect’s wing.
Hairs or similar protrusions along the margin of an organ.
Related words in other languages include: cil (eyelash), and sourcil (eyebrow) in French, ceja (eyebrow, rim, edge) in Spanish, and ciglio (eyelash, eyebrow, border, edge, side) in Italian [source].
Other (eye)brow-related words include:
highbrow = intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated; a cultured or learned person or thing
middlebrow = neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between; a person or thing that is neither highbrow nor lowbrow, but in between
lowbrow = unsophisticated, not intended for an audience of intelligence, education or culture; someone or something of low education or culture.
Highbrow first appeared in print in 1875, and originally referred to the ‘science’ of phrenology, which suggested that a person of intelligence and sophistication would possess a higher brow-line than someone of lesser intelligence and sophistication [source]. Lowbrow was also conntected to phrenology and first appeared in about 1902 [source]. Middlebrow first appeared in Punch magazine in 1925 and is based highbrow and lowbrow [source].
If something is completely devoid of cultural or educational value, it could be said to be no-brow / nobrow, a word popularized by John Seabrook in his book Nobrow: the culture of marketing, the marketing of culture (2000) [source].
Incidentally, raising or furrowing your eyebrows is used to show you are asking a question in British Sign Language (BSL). Do other sign languages do this?
Do you know of any other interesting brow-related expressions?
Alliteration is “The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals.” [source]. As in the sentence above. It comes from Modern/New Latin alliterationem, from alliterare (to begin with the same letter), from Latin ad (to, near) and lītera (letter, script) [source].
Other names for this include consonance (the repetition of consonants sounds) [source] and head rhyme. If similar or indentical vowel sounds are being repeated, as in “How now, brown cow?”, it’s called assonance [source] or slant rhyme.
Other kinds of rhymes include:
syllabic rhyme: the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. E.g. cleaver, silver; pitter, patter.
imperfect (or near) rhyme: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. E.g. wing, caring
weak (or unaccented) rhyme: a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. E.g. hammer, carpenter
semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. E.g. bend, ending
forced (or oblique) rhyme: a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. E.g. green and fiend; one, thumb)
pararhyme: all consonants match. E.g. tick, tock; bing, bong
Other types of rhyme, and other ways of classifying rhymes are available [More details].
I use a variety of rhymes in the songs I write. For example, my latest song was inspired by a phrase from the Irish course in Duolingo “Léann na lachan na nuachtán.” (The ducks read the newspaper). I made a more alliterative version: “Tá lacha ag léamh leabhar sa leabhrlann le leon agus luch.” (A duck is reading a book in the library with a lion and a mouse). The English version is only slightly alliterative, and that’s what often happens with translations, and why songs and poems are difficult to translate.
Here are the words of the song. Parts are quite alliterative, in Irish at least.
Eachtraí na Lacha (The Duck’s Adventures)
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
The duck is reading in the library
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
le leon agus luch (with a lion and a mouse)
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
The duck is walking to Sligo
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
ag lorg lámhainní (looking for gloves)
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
The duck is singing a song
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
faoi sionach an-sionnachúil (about a very cunning fox)
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
The duck is speaking Latin
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
lena lucht leanúna (with its supporters)
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
The duck is sleeping in its bed
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
And that’s the end of the tale
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
Here’s a rough recording:
I’ve been thinking of making it trilingual in Irish, English and Welsh, but haven’t got round to it yet.
Here’s an alliterative phrase I came up with that seems to translate well into a variety of languages:
English: Singers sing songs
Albanian: Këngëtarët këndojnë këngë
Armenian: Երգիչները երգեր են երգում (Yergich’nery yerger yen yergum)
Aymara: Q’uchunakax q’uchunak q’uchupxi
Bengali: গায়কেরা গান গায় (Gāẏakērā gāna gāẏa)
Bulgarian: Певците пеят песни (Pevtsite peyat pesni)
