Category: English

Labhair Gaeilge liom

By Simon

I just watched a video of an interview in Irish that Benny Lewis did on Raidió na Life, the Irish language radio station in Dublin. Benny mentions that he has had a t-shirt made with “Labhair Gaeilge liom” (Speak Irish with me) on it and that people who see the shirt speak Irish to him, if they can, even in places where he didn’t expect to find Irish speakers.

What a good idea, I thought. In Ireland you can’t tell if someone speaks Irish just by looking at them, so you never know who to speak Irish to, and people don’t know if you speak Irish either. A t-shirt like Benny’s clears up both uncertainties. The same is true in Wales, Scotland and other places where minority languages are spoken – you don’t know who speaks them. Similar clothing or badges could be useful for other languages as well.

It would be interesting to wander round London, for example, wearing a t-shirt with “Labhair Gaeilge liom” and/or “Siaradwch Gymraeg â fi” (Speak Welsh with me) to say how many Irish and/or Welsh speakers you could find. Or I’m sure you’d get a lot of interest if you wore a badge saying “你可以跟我说汉语” (You can speak Chinese to me).

Have you tried this for any languages?

Could you give me translations of this phrase in various languages so I can put together a new phrases page?

Reading aloud

By Simon

I heard an interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about reading aloud. It discussed how people studied the skill of reading aloud during the 18th century, including how to stand, how to hold your head, and what to do with your hands and face. There were manuals which taught people how to read aloud in the style of admired readers of the time. The presenter also talked to people how regularly read aloud to their children and/or to each other, and they said that it’s a skill that comes with practice.

Do you read aloud to yourself and/or to others? If you do, what kind of things do you read?

If you enjoy reading aloud in your own language, or in other languages, maybe you could share some examples with visitors to Omniglot.

When reading books and other material in foreign languages I often read aloud. I find it helps me understand what I’m reading and to work out which words go together and how they’re related. It is also a good way to practise your pronunciation. It’s better if you have a native speaker to help, or an audiobook to listen to, but even without these aids, it’s still a useful thing to do. If I’m reading a story I might try to give each character a different voice. Sometimes I even read English texts aloud, particularly things I’ve written. I find this helps me to spot mistakes and to check the flow of the text.

Llongau gofod a selsig (Spaceships and sausages)

By Simon

This is my latest little animation made using Xtranormal. It’s a silly little conversation between two robots which touches on such topics as the best way to get to the moon, a top secret Welsh spaceship, why vegetarians are at a disadvantage when it comes to local news and gossip, and ostrich sausages.

The conversation is in Welsh (written and recorded by me) with Welsh and English subtitles. I might add subtitles in other languages as well.

Bead houses

By Simon

There’s a village near where I live called Betws-y-Coed [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], which means ‘prayer house in the wood’. I knew the meaning of the name, but hadn’t considered where the word betws might come from. Last night a friend told me that it comes from an English word ‘bead house’, meaning a prayer house or oratory.

Wikipedia agress with this saying the word Betws or Bettws comes from the Old English bed-hus (house of prayer, oratory). The name was first recorded as ‘Betus’ in 1254.

According to this Old English Dictionary the Old English word bed means ‘prayer, supplication; religious ordinance, service’, hús means ‘house; temple, tabernacle; dwelling-place; inn; household; family, race’, and gebédhús is a house of prayer or oratory.

Apparently the Welsh words bacws (bakery) and warws (warehouse) contain the same hús root. I can’t find confirmation of this, but it sounds plausible. I guessed that these words came from English, but hadn’t made the connection with Betws before.

They must have been borrowed before the Great Vowel Shift which started during the 14th century. Before then house or hús was pronounced /hu:s/, as it still is in northern English and Scots. The /haus/ pronunciation emerged during the 18th century.

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon

– bouchon (m) / embouteillage (m) = traffic jam = tagfa drafnidiaeth (f)
– descendre en rappel = to abseil = abseilio
– rebondir = to bounce = sboncio / bowndio / tampio
– rebond (m) = bounce = sbonc / bownd
– être refusé = to bounce (a cheque) = gwrthod
– videur = bouncer = dryswr
– squelette (m) = skeleton = (y)sgerbwd / esgyrn sychion
– être aigri / en voulour à tout le monde = to have a chip on one’s shoulder = sglodyn ar dy ysgwydd

Stealth acquisitions in the insurance vertical

By Simon

I received an email today from someone who apparently specializes “in stealth acquisitions of domain names for corporate end users in the insurance vertical.” I think this means that he buys domain names for insurance-related businesses. I’m not sure what stealth acquisitions are though, or what the insurance vertical might be. Any suggestions?

Have you any good examples of corporate gobbledygook like this?

Ultd abbreviations

By Simon

Ultd text from ad and panda xing sign

I came across the abbreviations ‘Ultd‘ today in an online add and it took me a few moments to realise that it meant unlimited. From the context it was obvious: the ad mentions Ultd texts and Ultd Internet, but without this context it wouldn’t be so obvious. Maybe they didn’t have enough space to write the word in full, but perhaps a clearer abbreviation would be unltd.

Have you come across this abbreviation before, or are there any other abbreviations that puzzle you?

Another abbreviation I’ve seen on road signs in videos and photos from Australia and the USA is Xing, meaning crossing. This puzzled me the first time I saw it, maybe because I’m not used to seeing an X used to represent the word cross. I interpreteted the word as a Mandarin Chinese one written in pinyin and wondered which of the many words with that pronunciation it was meant to be.

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon

– asticoter = to wind up (annoy, provoke) = pryfocio, cythruddo
– fermer = to wind up (a company) = dirwyn i ben
– faire marcher qn = to pull sb’s leg (tease) = tynnu coes rhywun
– la (future/jeune) mariée = bride = priodferch
– le marié = (bride)groom = priodfab
– se casser le col du fémur = to break one’s hip = torri clun
– directeur (-trice) = warden (institution) = warden
– contractuel (le) = traffic warden = warden traffig
– barboter / faire trempette = to paddle (in water) = padlo / rhodli
– pagayer = to paddle (boat/canoe) = padlo
– (faire la) nage du chien = (to do the) doggy paddle = padlo ci

My huckleberry friend

By Simon

Photo of huckleberries

The phrase, my huckleberry friend, appears in one of the songs I’m learning at moment – Moon River. At a choir rehearsal last night one of the sopranos said that the word huckleberry means ‘a person who is right for a job’. I’d come across the word before but had never thought what it might mean.

According to World Wide Words the phrase ‘I’m your huckleberry’ means that you are “just the right person for a given job, or a willing executor of some commission.”

Huckleberries are small, dark, sweet berries of plants in the family Ericaceae, in two closely related genera: Vaccinium and Gaylussacia [source]. They were originally called hurtleberries, a dialect word for bilberry, which they resembled, by settlers in the Americas, and this word later became huckleberry. By the early 19th century the word huckleberry was associated with things humble and minor, and tiny amounts. This association was used by Mark Twain for his character Huckleberry Finn – a boy “of lower extraction or degree” than Tom Sawyer.

In the 1830s people started to metaphorically compare huckleberries and persimmons, which are much larger, to describe things that are somewhat beyond one’s reach or abilities. Somehow the word huckleberry also became associated with helpers and assistants, and also with insignificant and nice people.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word huckleberry is probably an alteration of the Middle English hurtilbery (whortleberry), from the Old English horte (whortleberry). The OED says that whortleberry (/ˈhwɜːt(ə)lbɛrɪ/) is a South-western (England) dialect form of hurtleberry, which is derived from the word hurt (bilberry), which possibly comes from the French heraldic term heurt(e) (small Azure balls) or from the French word heurt (mark left by a blow).

Cuddies

By Simon

An interesting Scots word I came across this week was cuddy which means coalfish or donkey and featured in the English translation of a Gaelic song. From the context I knew it was some kind of creature, but which one I wasn’t sure.

According to the Scots Language Centre website cuddy is a Scots word meaning donkey, a foolish person, a saw horse or a vaulting horse. A Scotch cuddy is a pedlar.

Another word that came up that was new to me was gaberlunzie /ɡæbərˈlʌnji/, an old Scots word for a licensed beggar who would seek fees to pray for the souls of other people [source].

Have you come across these words before?