Category: English

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?

Scottish adventures

By Simon

I’ve been in Scotland since last Saturday, mainly at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye. I’m doing a course in Gaelic mouth music (puirt à beul) and waulking songs (òrain luaidh) with Christine Primrose, and am having a wonderful time.

There are eight of us in the singing class – some from Scotland, some from England, one from Japan and one from Sardinia. The ones from Japan and Sardinia are both professional singers, and earlier today we were treated to some lovely songs from Okinawa, which sound quite similar to Irish traditional songs.

I’ve been speaking quite a bit of Scottish Gaelic, and find that I can now understand most of what I hear in Gaelic and have relatively complex conversations – so my Gaelic has improved a lot since I was last here four years ago. When I don’t know how to say something in Scottish Gaelic I try saying it in Irish and it’s usually understood, though not always.

I’ve also spoken some French, German, Czech and Welsh here, and quite a bit of Japanese. My Japanese is very rusty, but it’s starting to come back. It’s great to have opportunities to speak so many languages 🙂

Spòg

By Simon

I came across the Scottish Gaelic word spòg (foot) in a song I learnt today and it caught my attention because I heard it a couple of weeks ago when I was in Ireland being used to mean foot in English. I thought it might be a Irish word, but didn’t get round to checking.

In Scottish Gaelic spòg /sbɔːg/ means claw, talon, hand, radius, spoke, paw or leg. It is also used for the hands of a clock: spòg an uaireadair.

I can’t find spog in any of the Irish dictionaries I’ve checked, so maybe it’s a word used in Hiberno-English, but which is no longer used in Irish. The usual word for foot in Irish is cos, which also means leg.

Have any of you come across the word spog before?

Menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs

By Simon

A menhir from Brittany and a cromleac from Ireland

The word menhir come up in discussion yesterday and I posted it on Facebook today along with the the Welsh translation maen hir, which is what I found in this dictionary. This provoked further discussion about whether the two terms mean the same thing. So I thought I’d find out.

A menhir is a standing stone of the kind that Obelix delivers in the Asterix books. According to the Dictionary of Word Origins and the OED, menhir comes from Breton mean-hir (long stone), which is what the Welsh term maen hir means, so it seems that they are the same. The usual Breton word for such standing stones is peulvan, however.

The word dolmen (a prehistoric structure of two or more upright stones surmounted by a horizontal one), comes via French from Breton: the men part means stone, and the dol part either comes from the Breton word tōl (table), a borrowing from the Latin tabula (board, plank), or from the Cornish tol (hole). So dolmen either means ‘stone table’ or ‘stone hole’.

The word dolmen also exists in Welsh, and another word for such structures is cromlech, which exists in Welsh and English and comes from the Welsh words crwm (bent, stooped) and llech (stone), and is related to the Irish word cromleac (‘bent stone’).

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon

– mégalithe (m) = megalith = megalith / maen mawr
– menhir (m) = standing stone = maen hir
– dolmen (m) = dolmen = dolmen / cromlech
– tombe (f) tombeau (m) = tomb = bedd
– faire dévier de son sujet / distraire / dérouter = to sidetrack = gwrthdynnu / troi o’r neilltu
– s’écarter de son sujet = to get sidetracked
– en liquide = in cash = ym mhres / yn arian parod
– payer comptant = to pay cash = talu drwy/ag arian parod
– petite caisse = petty cash = arian pitw/mân
– argent liquide = ready cash = arian/pres parod
– monnaie (f) = change = newid (?)
– guérir = to cure (illness, problem, habit) = iacháu / gwella
– remède (m) = a cure = iachâd / gwellhad
– agent secret = secret agent = asiant cudd
– sous contrôle = under control = dan rheolaeth
– c’est une honte! = it’s a disgrace! = mae’n waradwydd!
– grange (f) = barn = ysgubor
– injection (f) piqûre (f) = injection = pigiad

Cars, carts and chariots

By Simon

Last week I was told that the English word car originally comes from the Irish word carr (donkey cart). Apparently when cars came to Ireland Irish speakers thought it was better to come up with a new word for them than to name them after the humble donkey cart, so the term gluaisteán (‘moving thing’) was coined. I hadn’t heard about this before, so thought I’d check it.

Chariot

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the English word car has been used to refer to a wheeled vehicle since 1300 and comes from the Old Northern French word carre, from the Latin carrum/carrus, which originally referred to a two-wheeled Celtic war chariot, from Gaulish karros (wagon), from Proto-Indo-European *krsos, from *kers- (to run).

There are related words in Welsh carr (cart, wagon), and in Breton: karr (chariot, cart), in Cornish: karr (car), in Manx: carr (car), in Spanish and Italian: carro (cart, wagon) and probably in other languages.

The word chariot comes from the same root as car, but cart probably comes from the Old Norse word kart-r (cart), according to the OED.

Another vehicle-related word we discussed last week is carbad (chariot), from the Old Irish carpat (war-chariot, waggon). It is related to the Welsh cerbyd (vehicle, car, carriage, coach), the Old Breton cerpit, the Gaulish carpentoracte, from the Latin corbis (basket), from carpentum (two wheeled chariot), which was probably borrowed from Gaulish. The root idea is ‘wicker’, referring to the basket character of the body of these chariots.

Counting rhymes

By Simon

We learnt this Irish counting rhyme in class today:

Lúrabóg lárabóg
Ladhra buithe
Buíeán Eoghain
Eoghean an Phreabáin
Preabán suilí
Súilí saic

The first two words are made up nonsense words, the others mean something like, “yellow toes, Eoghain’s egg yolk, Jack-in-the-Box, ??, eyelets of a sack”.

There are quite a few other rhymes like this in Irish. Do any of you know them, or counting rhymes in other languages?

One I know in English is:

Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.
Catch a tigger by his toe.
If he squeals, let him go.
Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.

I haven’t seen it written down before and I’m sure there are different ways to spell the words, and different versions of this rhyme. A Latin version was discussed in class, but unfortunately I didn’t write it down.

There are various theories about the origin is rhymes like this, but as most of them have been passed on from generation to generation of children with each generation changing them, we cannot be sure where they originally came from.