Category: English

Out in the sticks

By Simon

One of the expressions we discussed this week at the French conversation group was out in the sticks, which is en pleine cambrousse (‘in full countryside’) or au milieu de la cambrousse (‘in the middle of the countryside’).

La cambrousse comes from the Provençal cambrousso (hovel, storeroom), from cambra (bedroom). The sense of ‘province / countryside’ perhaps comes from the slang of travelling entertainers (saltimbanques) [source].

The expression ‘in the sticks’ was apparently coined in the USA and was first used in the Florence Times Daily in November 1897

… he gathered from 1 1/2 acres this year 21 barrels of corn. If any man “away in the sticks” can beat this, in the language of “Philander Doesticks,” we exclaim, “let him stand forward to de rear.”

At first it was associated mainly with baseball and ‘the sticks’ referred to exhibition games played in county locations. Later it came to refer to any out-of-the-way location.

Other ways to express this in English include ‘in the middle of nowhere’, ‘the back of beyond’ – are there others you know in English or other languages?

Haunted by the blank page

By Simon

Here are a few interesting French expressions I discovered this week:

– le tapis roulant à bagages = luggage/baggage carousel, or literally a “rolling carpet for baggage” – shame it isn’t a tapis volant (flying carpet)!

What do you call the conveyer belt thing that where you (hope to) retrieve your bags after a flight?

– le/la bagagiste = baggage handler – sounds like someone who really doesn’t like baggage. Maybe the reason why the French bagagistes seem to be on strike so frequently is that they can only bring themselves to handle baggage for limited periods.

– la hantise de la page blanche = writer’s block, or literally “obsessive fear of the white/blank page” – a good way to describe the condition. L’hantise comes from hanter (to haunt), from the Old Norse heimta (to bring home). The haunted meaning possibly came from English during the 19th century period of Anglomania. or from the Norman words hanté (visited by ghosts, haunted) and hant (ghost) [source].

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block / fear of the blank page? If you do, how do you overcome it?

To ginger up

By Simon

The other day I came across the expression to ginger up in an English-French dictionary (it’s secouer or animer in French). Examples given include:

– the ideal man to ginger up the chat show formula
– Attempts to ginger up the tennis club’s social nights proved unsuccessful.

The French word secouer is used in the context of ‘gingering up’ a person or organisation, while animer, which is related to animate, is used when gingering up involves making things more exciting. I can see how the application of real or metaphorical ginger might spice things up, but have never heard or seen the phrase ‘ginger up’ used in this context. Have you?

According to the Phrase Finder, to ginger up means to excite or enthuse, and an alternative version of the expression is ‘to get someone’s ginger up’. The former version was recorded by Francis Grose, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785): “To feague a horse, to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, to make him lively and carry his tail well.” It then appears again in 1895 in reference to baseball.

The latter version appears frist appears in print in 1843 in The Attaché by Thomas Haliburton, or Sam Slick in England: “Curb him [a horse], talk Yankee to him, and get his ginger up.”

De-risking and de-scaling

By Simon

The other day I heard a discussion on the radio (BBC Radio 4) in which the words de-risk and de-scale, cropped up. They caught my attention because I hadn’t come across them before.

The context was the UK Sports Minister talking about the London Olympics, and he said, “As the project moves on it de-risks and de-scales.” I took this to mean that the size and risks involved in the project are reduced as it proceeds. I’m not sure if the Minister made them up on the spot, or if he’d heard them or read them somewhere.

De-risk gets 310 results in Google, and derisk gets only 29. De-scale and descale get 5 and 6 results respectively. So it seems these words aren’t all that common. Have you heard them before?

Stookies, stucco and stalks

By Simon

I heard the word stookie on the radio the other day as was mystyfied as the it’s meaning – the context didn’t help. Forunately the person who mentioned it explained that it’s a Scottish word for plaster cast – the kind of thing you might have on a limb if you facture a bone. It’s also mention in this story on the BBC News site.

The Urban Dictionary provides this example of usage, Gonnae let me right a menshie oan yer stookie? (Are you going to let me write graffiti on your plaster cast?).

Wikitionary defines stookie as: plaster of Paris; plaster cast; (dialect) idiot; (dialect) shy person, and it apparently comes from stucco plus the diminutive suffix -ie.

Stucco comes from Italian, and means “stucco or plaster”, which comes from the Lombardic *stucki (crust, fragment, piece), from the Proto-Germanic *stukjan, *stukjaz, *stukō, *stūkō (stick, beam, stump), from the Proto-Indo-European *stAug- (stalk).

To me a stookie sounds like a more friendly thing to have on your arm or leg than a plaster cast, which is also known as a orthopedic or surgical cast. What do you think?

Les courses

By Simon

I discovered yesterday that French equivalents of ‘to go shopping’ or ‘to do the shopping’ are faire des courses or faire les commissions, which also mean ‘to run errands’. These expressions were new to me because when in French I’ve either stayed with families or in hotels and have never had to do or talk about such activities.

According to Reverso (to go) shopping (for food/groceries) is (faire) les courses, but shopping as a leisure activity is le shopping. In English you might say, ‘I am doing the shopping’ = I am shopping for food/groceries, but ‘I love shopping’ might refer to the leisure aspect of the activity. Do you make this distinction?

Related expressions include:
– partir faire les magasins = to go on a shopping expedition/trip
– les courses alimentaires = food shopping
– liste des courses = shopping list
– achat en ligne = online shopping
– centre commercial = shopping arcade / precinct / centre / mall
– sac/panier à provisions = shopping bag/basket
– caddie (m) = shopping trolley / cart
– faire du lèche-vitrines = to go window shopping
– faire ses cadeaux de Noël = to do one’s Christmas shopping

One way to practise languages you’re learning is to use them to write shopping lists. I usually write mine in Welsh.

Déménager

By Simon

In French if you want to talk about movement in general you use bouger, but for moving house you use déménager. The other day a friend pointed out that the root of déménager is ménage (housework, housekeeping, household, married couple), as in ménage à trois, from the Old French manage, from manoir (manor, country house), from the Latin manere (manner, fashion, way).

Déménager can also mean to leave, get lost, clear out, to be crazy, and related words include:

– emménager = to move in (to a house)
– un deménageur = furniture mover
– un deménagement = removal, moving
– déménager à la cloche de bois = to sneak off in the middle of the night
– Ça déménage ! = It’s great/brilliant!

As well as déménager, there are a few other French words for movement:

– bouger, remuer = to move (general)
– évoluer = to move (events, politics)
– circuler = to move, circulate (traffic); move along (get out of the way)
– avancer = to move (vehicle), advance, move along/forward
– voyager = to move about (from place to place), travel
– se déplacer = to move about (in a room or house)
– s’éloigner, s’en aller = to move off
– se pousser = to move over

Sources: Reverso, french.about.com, Wiktionary

Today and tomorrow

By Simon

Yesterday a friend asked me about the origins of the words today and tomorrow, and whether the to- part of them was orginally the. You sometimes come across expressions like ‘on the morrow’, and words appear with hypens in older texts: to-day and to-morrow.

According to the OED, today comes from the Old English tó dæg – the dæg part means day and the tó part means “at/in/during (a time), or on (a day). Tomorrow comes from to morȝen or to morwen – the morrow part means morning.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, today comes from the Old English todæge or to dæge (on (the) day), and Tomorrow comes from the middle English to morewe, from the Old English to morgenne (on (the) morrow), with morgenne being the dative of morgen (morning). They were written as two words until 16th century, then hypenated until the early 20th century.

In German (der) Morgen means morning, and morgen means tomorrow, and tomorrow morning is morgen früh or morgen vormittag, not morgen Morgen!

In French the word for today, aujourd’hui, comes from the expression au jour d’hui (on the day of today) – hui comes from the Latin hŏdĭē (today), a contraction of hŏc diē (this day). The Italian word for today, oggi, comes from the same root, and the expression al giorno d’oggi (nowadays, these days, today) has the same structure as aujourd’hui, though hasn’t replaced oggi as aujourd’hui has replaced hui in French. The Spanish and Portuguese words for today, hoy and hoje, also come from the same root and are used without embellishment. The Romanian word for today, astăzi, comes from a different root though – the Latin ista die (that day).

Sources: Wiktionnaire, Wikizionario, Wikcionario, Wikcionário & Wikționar.

Mandarin v English

By Simon

I came across an interesting article about the relative importance of Mandarin and English in South East Asia today. It talks about children from Malaysia being sent to school in Singapore because their parents want them to be fluent in English – schools in Malaysia teach in Malay, while those in Singapore teach in English. The parents believe that the standard of English used in Malaysia has declined significantly since the 1980s, when Malay had become the main language used in Malay schools, and they think the fluency in English is important for the children’s future.

Meanwhile in Singapore Mandarin is becoming increasingly important as more and more business is done with China. However English remains an important language. The article suggests that while both Mandarin and English are useful, English is a dominant position in terms of culture (music, movies, etc).

In Vietnam there is apparently a resistance to learning Mandarin and many people prefer to learn English and do business with the USA.

Haste and speed

By Simon

A friend asked me to investigate the expression more haste, less speed as it doesn’t seem to make sense. I’ve always interpreted as meaning you should do something more hastily and less quickly, which seems illogical to me.

The OED defines haste as:

1. Urgency or impetuosity of movement resulting in or tending to swiftness or rapidity; quickness, speed, expedition (properly of voluntary action).

2. Such quickness of action as excludes due consideration or reflection; hurry, precipitancy, want of deliberation, rashness.

The primary meaning of speed is given as:

Quickness in moving or making progress from one place to another, usually as the result of special exertion; celerity, swiftness; also, power or rate of progress.

So both words are related to swiftness, but haste can also indicate imeptuousness. There are a number of other meanings of speed though, which are now obsolete:

1. abundance; 2. power, might; 3. Success, prosperity, good fortune; profit, advancement, furtherance.

I suspect that the speed part of ‘more haste, less speed’ might be using speed in the sense of success, good fortune, etc. That would make more sense.

Then again, maybe the saying means that if you doing something hastily, you will also do it more slowly. So maybe it’s encouraging you to slow down, take your time and do it better.

How do you interpret this expression? Do you know any simliar ones?