Category: English

Kacab genals

By Simon

During the mid-19th century, London’s costermongers (sellers of fruit and veg) and butchers invented a form of slang known as back slang or kacab genals in order to talk amongst themselves without their customers understanding. They reversed words and pronounced them as far as possible according to their spelling. Extra vowels were inserted where necessary, and initial h’s were often pronounced ch /tʃ/ (tS) or sh /ʃ/ (S), as in dee-aitch for head, esroch for horse, eemosh for home, and vatch for have. The only back slang word that passed into common usage was yob, which original just meant boy and had no negative connotations.

Back slang is still used to some extent, according to a report on Word of Mouth on the BBC, which is where I got the inspiration for this post. More details of back slang can be found here and here.

A variant of back slang is Pig Latin or Igpay Atinlay, which usually involves moving the initial consonant or consonant cluster from the beginning of a word to the end and adding ay, or just adding ay if a word starts with a vowels. For example, Ymay overcrafthay isway ullfay ofway eelsway.

Verlan is a form of back slang used in France that reverses the syllables rather than the letters. For example, flic (cop) = keuf, mec (man) = keum, and bizarre (weird) = zarb/zarbi. The name Verlan comes from l’envers (inverse).

Coals to Newcastle and missed boats

By Simon

Taking or carrying coals to Newcastle is an idiomatic expression that means doing something that is completely unnnecessary, pointless or superfluous. The German equivalent of this is Eulen nach Athen bringen/tragen – to take/bring owls to Athens. Are there similar expressions in other languages?

Newcastle-upon-Tyne used to be a major coal mining area and the UK’s first coal exporting port, and was first associated with pointless activities in Thomas Fuller’s 1661 The history of the worthies of England: in which he wrote, “To carry Coals to Newcastle, that is to do what was done before; or to busy one’s self in a needless imployment.”

An idiomatic way of saying that you’ve missed something such as an opportunity or an event, is ‘I’ve missed the boat’ or ‘that ship has sailed’. In German, the equivalent is der Zug ist abgefahren – the train has departed. A similar expression is used in Swedish – tåget har gått – the train has left. What about in other languages?

By the way, a good place to find information about English idioms is: www.phrases.org.uk

Blown away

By Simon

It’s extremely windy here today, which has got me thinking about the names given to particular winds in different parts of the world. My favourite wind names are Sirocco, a southerly wind that blows from north Africa to southern Europe, and Mistral, a cold northerly wind that blows from central France and the Alps to the Mediterranean.

The name sirocco is Italian. In North Africa this wind is known as قبلی (qibli), in Greece it’s σιρόκος (sirokos), in Croatia it’s jugo, and by the time it reaches Southern France it known as the marin.

The name mistral comes from the Provençal word for “master”. Another name for this wind is le vent du fada, or “the idiot wind”, so-called because the Mistral is believed to be more than capable of driving even the sanest weather scientist to gibbering insanity.

Do any of your local winds have interesting names?

Postilions and lightning

By Simon

There’s an urban legend that sometime during the 19th century a phrasebook was published that including the extemely useful phrase “My postilion has been struck by lightning”. There seems to be various theories about the origins of this phrase, and a number versions of the phrase, including “Our postillion has been struck by lightning!”, or “Stop, the postilion has been struck by lightning!”.

According to Nigel Rees on the Quote Unquote website, both postilions and lightning are mentioned in Karl Baedeker’s The Traveller’s Manual of Conversation in Four Languages (1836), in which the phrase: “Postilion, stop; we wish to get down; a spoke of one of the wheels is broken.” appears. In an 1886 edition of this book, there appears the phrase: “Are the postilions insolent?; the lightning has struck; the coachman is drunk.”

Other useful phrases including the the Baedeker book include “Can we get a pony or a donkey for Madame, to mount up that hill?”, “Clean that looking-glass a little, it is quite dull.”, and “Come, make haste. Plait my hair, and make the curls; for I want to go out.”

Do any of you have a copy of Baedeker’s book, or something similar? I’d like to find out how he translated these phrases. Which of the phrases that appear in current phrasebooks do you think people will be laughing about in 100 year’s time?

A postilion or postillion, in case you’re wondering, is one who rides as a guide on the near horse of one of the pairs attached to a coach or post chaise especially without a coachman.

Head over heels

By Simon

When you’re head over heels about something or someone it means that you’re very excited, and/or turning cartwheels to demonstrate your excitement. This idiom is often used in the phrase ‘head over heels in love with’. It was probably first used in the 14th century, when it was ‘heels over head’, which makes more sense. At some point the components got reversed.

Other idioms used to indicate that things are not as usual include ‘upside-down’, ‘topsy-turvy’, ‘arse over tea-kettle’, ‘higgledy-piggledy’, and ‘arse over tit’.

The Spanish equivalent of this idiom is patas arriba (paws on top) – this is one I learnt today, and in Chinese it’s 亂七八糟 (luànqībāzāo = confusion seven eight rotten). What about in other languages?

When words fail you

By Simon

When you find yourself unable to recall a particular word, there are quite a few alternative filler words you can call on. In English these include thing, thingumy, thingumybob, thingamyjig, wotsit, doobree, doodad, and whatchamacallit. Few of these words have a standard form, so you can spell them how you like.

Knowing the equivalents of these words in other languages is very useful because there will always be gaps in your vocabulary. What kinds of filler words do you use in your language?

Muppet shuffling

By Simon

If modern management-speak, buzzwords and other jargon leaves you confused, then Shoot the Puppy: A survival guide to the curious jargon of modern life, by Tony Thorne, which I borrowed from my local library today, will help to enlighten you.

The title of this post, muppet shuffling, refers to the practise of moving underperforming or troublesome employees into other departments or positions where they can’t do too much harm, while the term, shoot the puppy, means to do the unthinkable.

Other intesting terms in the book include infobia, the fear of not having enough information, or of having too much, which is also known as data-glut and knowledge pollution; stoozing, profiting from credit card special offers; proctoheliosis, overweening self-importance, and cubicle monkeys, low-level employees who work in cubicles.

Humour

By Simon

When chatting with some Iranian friends yesterday, the subject of British humour came up. My friends told me that British humour, particularly language-based humour, has much in common with Persian humour, and that the Iranians really appreciate British jokes, unlike many other nationalities.

The things people laugh at seem to vary from country to country. In some places comedy tends to be very physical with lots of slapstick, in others it’s more about playing with language. So something that might be considered funny in more country, might be greeted with indifference in others.

What kind of things do you find funny?

Word of the day – tintinnabulation

By Simon

tintinnabulation = the act or an instance of the ringing or pealing of bells. From Latin tintinnāre to tinkle, from tinnīre to ring.

Related words
tintinnabulte = to ring, to tinkle
tintinnabulary = a bellringer
tintinnabulum = a small high-pitched bell
tinnitus = medical term for a ringing or buzzing in the ears

I came across this word on World Wide Words today and it really appeals to me as a pleasant-sounding word and as a fine example of onomatopoeia. Another onomatopoeic term for the ringing of bells in ding dong, in both English and French. The French for tintinnabulation is tintinnabulement, the Spanish is campanilleo, and the German is Klingeln.

What sounds do bells make in other languages?

Hippopotami and paninis

By Simon

English contains more foreign loan words than you can shake a stick at. In some cases both their singular and plural forms have been adopted, but sometimes only one of these forms makes it into English. For example, panini is the plural of panino, an Italian-style sandwich, but only the former is normally used in English – the plural paninis is quite common. In Italian the plural of pizza is pizze, but in English we say pizzas.

Some, though not all, of the unusual plural forms are regularised. Examples include, stadium, the plural of which is either stadia, or more commonly, stadiums. Formula, which can be pluralised as either formulae or formulas. Also kibbutz – kibbutzim/kibbutzes; octopus – octopi/octopuses; hippopotamus – hippopotami/hippopotamuses; index – indices/indexes; matrix – matrices/matrixes.

A few years ago I went to Sicily for a holiday. On arrival in Catania I felt a bit peckish so went to get something to eat at an airport café. In some Italian cafés you have to pay first, then you take the receipt to the food counter and pick up your food. I asked the guy behind the cash register for ‘uno panini‘, thinking I was asking for one sandwich. As I used the plural form (I’d forgetten the singular), he thought I was asking for two and charged me accordingly. I was quite surprised when the food counter guy handed me two sandwiches, but didn’t mind too much as I was very hungry by then.

Here’s a plural-related conundrum (plural conundra/conundrums) for you: the plural of child is children, the plural of ox is oxen. Can you think of any other English words with the same type of plural?