Category: English

Nadsat

By Simon

The other day I saw a play based on Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange, which was linguistically interesting. When I read the book many years ago I was able to guess the meanings of most of the Nadsat words from the context – Nadsat is the form of speech used by some characters in the book which combines English with a lot of slang words, most of which come from Russian and are given English spellings and pronunciations. At that time I didn’t know any Russian, so none of the words sounded familiar.

Now I do know a bit of Russian and found that I knew the meanings of quite a few of the Nadsat words borrowed from Russian, though it took me quite a while to recognise some of them. The word horrorshow, for example, is used frequently but it wasn’t until near the end of the play that I realised that it was a version of хорошо (khorošo = good).

Other Russian loanwords I recognised include:

– droog = друг (drug) – friend
– bratty = брат (brat) – brother
– goloss = голос (golos) – voice
– govoreet = говорить (govorit’) – speak
– malchick = мальчик (mal’čik) – boy
– millicent = милиция (militsija) – police
– noga = нога (noga) – foot
– slovo = слово (slovo) – word
– slooshy = слушать (slušat’) – to listen, hear
– yahzick = язык (yazyk) – tongue

Here’s a Nadsat dictionary.

Printer’s devils

By Simon

I discovered a interesting term today for misspellings, missed words and other mistakes in a text – printer’s devils. This term originally referred to apprentices working in print shops who did things like mixing ink and fetching type. The origins of the term are uncertain, but printers believed that their shops were haunted by a particular type of devil who made mischief by misspelling words, setting type the wrong way round, and making words and whole lines go missing [source].

So if you spot any mistakes on Omniglot, maybe the printer’s devils have been up to their old tricks.

A Taste of Old English

By Simon

I discovered a video today which provides a taste of Old English:

It was filmed at the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk in the east of England. The village has reconstructed Anglo-Saxon houses, and stages living history re-enactments of Anglo-Saxon life, including, it seems, some Old English.

I found that I could understand the Old English pretty well – both spoken and written (see YouTube or Đa Engliscan Gesiðas for a transcription and translation). How much can you understand?

Fá dtaobh de

By Simon

The Irish expression fá dtaobh de means about, as in tá mé ag cainnt fá dtaobh de (I am talking about it). It is most commonly used in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, where it’s pronounced something like /fa’duːdə/. In other parts of Ireland it would be pronounced something like /fa.d̪ˠiːv.dʲe/, though other words are generally used: faoi or ina thaobh.

I’m familiar with the Dongel version of this expression, as I’ve been going to Donegal to speak and sing in Irish every summer for the past 8 years, but I’d never seen it written down before so didn’t know how to spell it. I came across it today in a spoof article in the Donegal Dollop, in which a Donegal man discovers that ‘faduda’ is not a real Irish word. The article mentions a number of other Donegal expressions, such as “mashadahollay” (más é do thoil é = please) and “cateeya” (cad chuige = why). These ‘phonetic’ spellings give a better idea of the Donegal pronunciation than the standard spellings.

Students of Irish often struggle with is spelling and pronunciation – when you hear Irish words spoken and compare them to their written versions it can be hard to make connections between the two. Irish does have a regular spelling system, but it is quite complex – many letters are not pronounced, or are pronunced in unfamilar whys – e.g. bh & mh = /vˠ/ or /w/, and words run into each other and bits fall off. For example, thank you is go raibh maith agat – pronouncing the syllables separately you get something like /go/, /ɾˠɛ̝̈vʲ/, /mˠa/, /agˠət̪/, but in normal speech it’s more like /gˠərˠəmˠagˠət̪/, at least in Donegal.

Pronunciation can take quite a while to get to grips with, even with languages with relatively straightforward spelling systems and phonologies like Spanish and Italian. There are many subtleties of pronunciation that can only really be acquired with a lot of careful listening and mimicing.

Flam paradiddles & Pataflaflas

By Simon

I came across the term flam paradiddle on the radio the other day and thought at first it might be used to describe some kind of movement – maybe a dance move or a skateboarding trick. Now I know that a flam paradiddle one of the patterns or rudiments used in drumming, or rather a combination of those rudiments.

A diddle is “a double stroke played at the current prevailing speed of the piece.”

A paradiddle “consists of two single strokes followed by a double stroke – i.e. RLRR or LRLL”

A flam “consists of two single strokes played by alternating hands (RL or LR). The first stroke is a quieter grace note followed by a louder primary stroke on the opposite hand. The two notes are played almost simultaneously, and are intended to sound like a single, broader note.”

A flam paradiddle is “a paradiddle with a flam on the first note. Also known as a flamadiddle.”

Source: Wikipedia

Another interesting term used in drumming is a pataflafla, which is “a four-note pattern with flams on the first and last notes.”

The etymology of these words is obscure.

So if any of my friends who are into drumming start talking about flam paradiddles or similar, I now have an idea of what they mean.

Pozo

By Simon

Last night I learnt a song, En el pozo María Luisa (In the Maria Lusia mine), from a Spanish friend. This song, which is also known as Nel Pozu Maria Luisa or Santa Bárbara Bendita, comes from Asturias in north west Spain and is usually sung in Asturian, Spanish or a mixture of the two. It is the story of a mining accident in the Pozu Maria Luisa coal mine, in the town of Ciaño in the municipality of Langreo.

While I was able to understand most of the words after hearing them a few times, some of them puzzled me. For example, when I heard the word pozo (mine) it sounded to me more like porzo, which I couldn’t find in my Spanish dictionaries when I looked. Eventually I found pozo when looking in the English-Spanish section for the word mine. Another word for mine is mina.

Pozo /’poθo/ is a well; a deep pool, the deep part of a river; a shaft, pit or mine; or the hold (of a ship). It comes from the Latin word puteus (pit, dungeon, well, cistern).

Expressions containing pozo include:

– pozo artesiano = artesian well
– pozo de petróleo = oil well
– pozo ciego/negro = cesspool
– caer en el pozo = to fall into oblivion
– pozo de aire = air shaft
– pozo de registro/visita = manhole / inspection hatch
– ser un pozo de ciencia = to be immensely learned
– es un pozo de maldad = he is utterly wicked

I assumed that the song was in Spanish, and that the words that puzzled me they were just ones I hadn’t heard before, like pozo. Now I realise that some of the words might have been Asturian – the Spanish friend who taught me the song is from Asturias.

Les giboulées de mars

By Simon

April showers (from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthnecumbria/weather/calendar_competition/april/april_gallery_75.shtml)

The other day I discovered that the French equivalent of April Showers is Les giboulées de mars, or ‘March showers’. April showers sound soft and light to me, whereas Les giboulées de mars sound unpleasantly wet.

April showers are showers, often heavy, that fall in Spring, especially in March and April, in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the UK and Ireland, and also in France. They occur when the jet stream starts to move north in early spring letting strong winds and rain, and sometimes sleet and snow, sweep in from the Atlantic [source].

The word giboulée /ʒi.bu.le/ means sudden, short shower often mixed with snow or sleet, or in French ‘Pluie soudaine et brève souvent mêlée de neige ou de grésil.‘ [source]. It’s etymology is uncertain and is possibly related to the Langue d’Oc words giboulado (shower), gibourna (to sizzle) and/or gibournado (shower) [source]. Another French word for shower is averse.

Honchos

By Simon

I thought that the word honcho as in head honcho (big leader / big cheese) came from Japanese. The OED and the Online Etymology Dictionary both say that it comes from the Japanese word 班長 (hanchō) or squad / team leader, and that it was borrowed by American servicemen in Japan and Korea in 1947-1953.

However, according to The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky, which I’m reading at the moment, the word honcho is a version of the Basque word jauntxo /xaunʧo/, a wealthy. powerful, rural landowner – a word with a ironic, negative undertone. From jaun (sir / lord / god). This sounds kind of plausible, though I haven’t found any other sources which make the same claim.

The book is interesting and includes quite a few bits of Basque language, and even some recipes. It is also somewhat biased in favour of the Basques.

Squeegee

By Simon

A squeegee

The other day I discovered that the thing I clean my windows with is a squeegee – I was familiar with the name, and knew it had something to do with cleaning, but wasn’t sure exactly what a squeegee was. From the sound of the name I guessed that it was a soft, squeezy kind of thing, which doesn’t quite match a window cleaning squeegee.

According to Wikipedia:

A squeegee, squilgee or sometimes squimjim, is a tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface. It is used for cleaning and in printing.

The original squilgee was a long-handled, wooden-bladed tool fishermen used to scrape fish blood and scales from their boat deck, and to push water off the deck after it had been washed.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word squeegee come perhaps from the nautical word squeege (to press), a strengthened form of squeeze, which the OED suggests is a strengthened form or quease (to press, squeeze).

Are there any tools of other implements you use that you don’t know the names of?

Accents past and future

By Simon

I came across an interesting article on the BBC News website today about the predominant use of British accents for characters in fantasy worlds, such as the Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. Game of Thrones is apparently aimed at American audiences, adapted from books by George RR Martin, an American author, but almost all the characters speak with British accents. Also for historical dramas in English the default and expected accents are generally British. The article suggests that British accents add a “splash of otherness” to such productions, at least for American audiences.

On the other hand for fantasy films and TV series set in the future, on other planets and/or in space, American accents are probably more common than British accents. Although there are exceptions, such as Red Dwarf and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and some characters in Star Trek.

In plays, particularly those by Shakespeare, the default accent is RP (posh), although quite a few of the puns and jokes don’t work in that accent. Some productions in original pronunciation (OP) have also been staged, and were well received. In other English-speaking countries do Shakepearean actors speak in the normal accents, or do they use RP?

Are different regional or national accents associated with particular time periods in films in other languages?