Category: English

Word of the day – Hypocorism

By Simon

A hypocorism is a pet name or diminutive. For example, Bob, Rob, Bobby, Robbie (from Robert). I came across this word for the first time the other day and had to look it up because I didn’t know what it meant.

Hypocorisms or diminutives seem to be more widely used in some languages than in others. The Slavic languages use them a lot, and not just for people’s names – just about any noun has a hypocoristic form. At least that’s what my Czech, Slovak, Polish and Russian-speaking friends tell me.

Hypocoristic affixes in English include

-ey/y/ie, as in doggie (dog), horsey (horse), barbie (barbeque), postie (postman/woman), tinnie (tin [of beer]), cozzie (swimming costume), mozzie (mosquito), footie/footy (football). This affix is particularly popular in Australia and Scotland.

-ling, as in duckling, gosling

-ette, as in kitchenette, cigarette, towellette

-let, as in piglet

Can you think of any others?

There are more examples of hypocorisms/diminutives in a variety of languages here.

Sushi-go-round

By Simon

Today I came across the term sushi-go-round for the first time. I’d been discussing Japanese restaurants with a Japanese friend and mentioned that I didn’t know what to call those sushi places where you sit a the counter and the dishes come round on a conveyor belt. He found the term sushi-go-round in a Japanese-English dictionary. The Japanese name for such restaurants is 回転ずし (kaiten zushi) – lit. ‘rotating/revolving sushi’.

Have you heard of the term sushi-go-round before?

In some Chinese restaurants the tables have a bit in the middle that rotates so that you can a reach dishes without stretching across the table. Sort of similar to the sushi-go-round, but on a smaller scale. I think this is called a lazy susan in English. Does anybody know what it’s called in Chinese? Or do you have any other names for it in English?

Word of the day – toponymy

By Simon

Toponymy is the study of the origins and meanings of place names (toponyms). It comes from the Greek τόπος (topos) – place, and oνομα (ōnoma) – name. It is a branch onomastics, the study of all kinds of names.

The other day I came across an interesting site containing information about the Welsh, Gaelic, Scandinavian and Scots roots of some British places names. Here are a few Scandinavian elements that appear in some British places names, especially in Orkney and Shetland, parts of mainland Scotland, the north west of England and parts of Wales. Do you know of can you guess their meanings?

Beck, fell, fors, garth, gill, holm, noup, ramna, scord and ting.

The place where I grew up, Silverdale, Lancashire in the north west of England, has a name of Scandinavian origin – the dale part comes from the Norse dalr (valley), but nobody is quite sure of the origin of the Silver part. One theory is that it was named after a Viking chief called something like Silr or Selr. Another theory is that the name comes from the large number of silver birch trees that grow in the area.

Tourism and minority languages

By Simon

The other day, I came across an article that discusses the impact of tourism and migration on minority languages, particularly on the Welsh language. While tourism brings a significant amount of money to Welsh-speaking areas, it can also have a negative impact on the language.

When relatively large numbers of non-Welsh speakers visit or move to a Welsh-speaking area, the local people often feel some pressure to speak English rather than Welsh, and English-speaking parents who move to such areas aren’t all convinced of the benefits of education through the medium of Welsh or bilingual education.

Many in-migrants to Welsh speaking areas are apparently those who have been there on holiday before and/or who have a holiday home or a caravan there. Quite a few holiday home owners move to those homes when they retire. One negative aspect of in-migration is on house prices, which tend to rise beyond the reach of the locals.

I suspect similar tensions can be found in other areas where minority languages are spoken, such as the gaeltachtaí in Ireland, parts of Scotland, Brittany and so on.

The original Welsh version of the article can be found here.

Bilingual toys

By Simon

According to an article in The Boston Globe, there has been a significant increase in the sale of bilingual toys in the USA. These are toys the speak words and phrases and sing songs, and which are designed to help young children to learn languages. The most popular language combination is English and Spanish, which doesn’t come as much surprise given that there are nearly 48 million people of Hispanic origin in the United States. There are also toys that speak Chinese, Russian, Korean, Greek, Hebrew and various other languages.

A related article gives more details and mentions that toy manufacturers are bringing out bilingual phones, globes, dolls, books and laptops. A market niche toy companies didn’t expect was the parents of children adopted from other countries, who are keen on toys that speak the languages of their children as this helps ‘bridge the gap between the two countries’.

If kids get an early start with learning languages, and see it as something enjoyable, this bodes well for their future.

Do any of you know if there are any bilingual or multilingual computer games?

Immigrant language learning

By Simon

There was a interesting report on the radio this morning about helping immigrants in London to learn English. They interviewed a Bangladeshi woman who has lived in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which has a large immigrant population, for over 20 years but who speaks very little English. She told the interviewer that on the rare occasions when she needs to communicate in English, she uses an interpreter. The rest of the time she speaks Bengali. She also said that there aren’t enough teachers of English as a Second Language in that area, a claim that a representative of the local council denied.

It’s interesting the way some immigrant communities hold on to their languages for many generations, while others abandon them within a generation or two.

Have you had any experience of this phenomenon?

Peculiar names

By Simon

Today I came across a site, presented by Lady Fortune the Absurd of Greater Internetshire, that automatically generates silly aristocratic titles, such as The Very Reverend Omniglot the Random of Midhoop St Giggleswich or Milord Sir Lord Simon the Contrite of Much Moulding upon Carpet.

Some of the names it throws up, such as Piddletrenthide, Barton in the Beans and Giggleswick, are genuine places in the UK, but many of them are made up. Piddletrenthide is a small village on the River Piddle in Dorset, Barton in the Beans is in Leicestershire, and Giggleswick is in North Yorkshire.

There are plenty of other oddly-named places in the UK, including Chipping Sodbury, Ugglebarnby, Steeple Bumpstead, Blubberhouses and Bugthorpe, and this site generates more.

Are there are any oddly-named places near you?

Talking for Britain

By Simon

At the moment I’m reading a fascinating book about the English language in the UK called Talking for Britain – A Journey Through the Nation’s Dialects, by Simon Elmes. It draws on the BBC’s Voices survey and shows that regional English is very much alive and well, and constantly changing. Although many of the old rural dialects are disappearing, new urban ones are evolving.

One of the things the book discusses is terms of affection or greeting, which include me ‘ansum (my handsome) in Cornwall; my lover, in Bristol and the West Country (Wess Vinglun); mi duck, loov (love), yowth (youth) or cock in the Midlands; and chuck in Lancashire. These are generally used by anyone to anyone, though can lead to misunderstanding when used to people from other areas.

Other interesting words I’ve come across include tiddy oggy, a potato pie or pasty in Cornwall and Devon; ferniggle, to play truant in the West of England; agger-jaggers, sea mist in Kent; obzocky, unattractive – from Trinidad; mollycrosh, to hit – from Wigan; gennel, snicket or twitchel, an alley in different parts of the Midlands; and skopadiddle/skopadiggle – a mischievous child in Sheffield.

There are more examples here, and there are clips of interviews with people from all over the UK on the Voices site. I found some of the Cornish people most difficult to understand.