Superfluously Redundant

14 August 2024 By Simon

What does the word redundant have to do with surges and waves? Let’s find out.

Meanings of redundant [ɹɪˈdʌn.dənt / ɹɪˈdan.dənt] include:

Superfluous; exceeding what is necessary, no longer needed.
Repetitive or needlessly wordy (of words, writing, etc).
Dismissed from employment because no longer needed (mainly UK, Ireland, Australia & New Zealand).
Duplicating or able to duplicate the function of another component of a system, providing backup in the event the other component fails.

It comes from the Latin word redundāns (overflowing, abounding), from redundō (to overflow, abound, pour out), from red- (again, back) + undō (surge, flow, abound), from unda (a wave, billow) [source].

Words from the same roots include undulate (to move in a wavelike motion, to appear wavelike) and redound (to contribute, reverberate, attach, reflect) in English, and ridondare (to overflow, abound, overwhelm) in Italian, redundar (to redound, result) in Spanish, and ondoyer (to sway, undulate) in French [source].

The word superfluous (in excess of what is required or sufficient) has a similarly overflowing origin – it comes from Middle English superfluous (redundant, immoderate, excessive), from Latin superfluus (running over, overflowing, superfluous, unnecessary), from superfluō (to run over, overflow, be superfluous), from super- (over, above) + fluō (to flow, stream, pour) [source].

Another word from similarly flowing roots is mellifluous, which means sweet, smooth and musical, or pleasant to hear, and usually refers to a person’s voice, tone or writing style. It can also mean ‘flowing like honey’, and comes from Latin mellifluus (honey-dropping, flowing with honey, mellifluous), from mel (honey, sweetness, pleasantness) + fluō (to flow, pour, stream) [source].

If someone has a mellifluous voice, you might describe them as melliloquent, an old word meaning ‘speaking sweetly or harmoniously’, from Latin mel (honey, etc) + loquens (speaking, talking) [source].

Back in 2008, I was made redundant from my job as a web developer in Brighton. Or rather, my position was made redundant – that’s how they put it. They gave me a substantial redundancy payment and that was that. At the time, I couldn’t really afford to stay in Brighton, and fancied a change of scenery anyway, so I moved to Bangor and did an MA in Linguistics. I’ve been here ever since, working on Omniglot full-time, and am fortunate enough to make a living from it.

Rucksacks & Mistletoe

9 August 20249 August 2024 By Simon

What links the Italian word zaino (rucksack, backpack) with the English word mistletoe? Let’s find out.

Zaino [ˈdzaj.no] means rucksack, backpack, sack or bag in Italian [source]. It comes from Lombardic *zainjā (basket), from Old High German zeina (basket), from Proto-Germanic *tainijǭ (wickerwork, wicker basket), from *tainaz (rod, twig), the origins of which are unknown [source].

Words from the same roots include teen (twig, thin branch) in Dutch, Zain (rod, branch, whip) in German, tein (twig, offshoot, spindle) in Norwegian, ten (small stick or rod) in Swedish, and zana (a shallow, oval basket) in Italian [source].

Misletoe (a parasitic evergreen plant with white berries which grows on oaks, apple and other trees* – see above) comes from Middle English mistelto, mistilto (misletoe), from Old English misteltān, misteltān (misletoe), from mistel (mistletoe, basil, birdlime) + tān (twig, branch) [source].

*This refers to European misletoe,Viscum album. Other varieties of mistletoe are available [source].

Mistel comes from Proto-West Germanic *mistil (mistletoe), from Proto-Germanic *mistilaz (mistletoe), from Proto-Indo-European *me (with, mid) + *sed- (to sit) + *-ilaz (diminutive suffix), so mistletoe is a little plant that sits on other plants – a good description. The English word mistle, as in mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus – see below), comes from the same roots, and used to be used to mean misletoe [source].

The Old English word tān (twig, branch) comes from Proto-Germanic *tainaz (rod, twig) [source], like the Italian word zaino, so there we have our connection. In Lancashire dialect, a tan used to refer to a twig or branch [source].

Incidentally, mistletoe in Italian is vischio [vi.skjo], which comes from Vulgar Latin *visclum, from Latin viscum (mistletoe, birdlime), the origins of which are uncertain [source]. The Portuguese word visgo (viscosity, any viscous substance secreted by or extracted from plants, mistletoe) comes from the same roots [source], as do viscous, viscose and viscosity in English [source]

Forest Cities

31 July 202431 July 2024 By Simon

What is a forest, and can cities such as London and Berlin by classified as forests?

There are hundreds of definitions of what constitutes a forest involving things like the number of trees, the height of trees, the land use, legal standings and ecological function.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a forest is

“Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use.”

Some people say that by this definition, cities like London and Berlin are technically forests as they have 20% or more of tree cover. However, as the land is predominantly under urban use, such claims do not really hold water. There are apparently almost as many trees as people in London, by the way, and over 40% of the city is made up of green spaces (see above), and about a third of Berlin is composed of forests, parks and gardens, rivers, canals, and lakes (see below).

Other definitions of forest include:

A dense uncultivated tract of trees and undergrowth, larger than woods [source].
A complex ecological system and natural resource in which trees are the dominant life-form [source].
A dense growth of trees and underbrush covering a large tract; a tract of wooded land in England formerly owned by the sovereign and used for game [source].
An extensive wood; a large tract of land covered with trees; in the United States, a wood of native growth, or a tract of woodland which has never been cultivated [source].

Historical, a forest in England was an area of land set aside as royal hunting ground or for other privileged use.

The word forest comes from Middle English forest (a forest, a wood, a preserve for hunting exclusive to royalty), from Old French forest (royal hunting ground, forest), from Early Medieval Latin forestis (a large area reserved for the use of the King or nobility, often a forest and often for hunting or fishing), possibly from Proto-West Germanic *furhisti (forest), from *furhiþi (forest) +‎ *hursti (thicket, grove) [source].

Proto-West Germanic *hursti is also the root of horst (an elevated land overgrown with shrub) in Dutch, Horst (the nest of a bird of prey, an eyrie; bush, thicket, small forest [literary]) in German, and hurst (a wood or grove) in English, which appears mainly in placenames such as, Hurstpierpoint, Lyndhurst, Sissinghurst and Woodhurst [source].

Incidentally, in Middle English wode referred to forests and woods, as well as wood (material), and it also meant to hunt, to take to the woods, or to hide oneself in the woods. A forester or forest warden was a wodeward [source].

Sources and further information:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forest#English
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest
https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/did-you-know-that-london-is-the-worlds-largest-urban-forest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin

Water Parties

23 July 202423 July 2024 By Simon

The other day I came across the Spanish word aguafiestas. I guessed it had something to do with water, (agua) and parties (fiestas), so could mean something like ‘water parties’.

In fact it means party pooper, wet blanket, spoilsport, killjoy or buzzkill, or in other words, a person who takes the fun out of a situation or activity. The fiestas part does refer to parties, but the agua part comes from the verb aguar (to water, water down, spoil, mar), so aguafiestas is someone who spoils parties by figuratively pouring water on them.

Related words and expressions include:

aguar la fiesta = to put a damper on things, spoil the fun, rain on sb’s parade
aguado = watery, flaccid, weak, boring, stale
aguadito = a kind of soup
desaguar = to drain

The opposite of una aguafiestas is el alma de la fiesta (the life and soul of the party).

If you’re neither una aguafiestas nor el alma de la fiesta, maybe you comes pavo (“eat turkey”) or eres la fea del baile (“are the ugly one at the dance”), or in other words, you’re a bit of a wallflower*.

*A person who does not dance at a party, due to shyness or unpopularity; by extension, anyone who is left on the sidelines while an activity takes place. Any person who is socially awkward, shy, or reserved.

I can be a bit of a wallflower at times, and even wrote a song about it called Two Left Feet:

Simon Ager · Two Left Feet / Dwy Droed Chwith

Are there interesting equivalents of aguafiestas / party pooper, wallflower, etc in other languages?

Sources: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aguafiestas
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aguar#Spanish
https://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/aguar
https://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/el+alma+de+la+fiesta
https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-spanish/wallflower
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wallflower

Taradiddles

17 July 202417 July 2024 By Simon

One of the interesting words that was mentioned on the Words Unravelled podcast that I listened to today was taradiddle, which apparently means a little white lie.

According to Wiktionary, taradiddle (or tarradiddle) means a trivial lie, a fib, silly talk or writing, or humbug.

It possibly comes from diddle (to cheat, swindle, waste time, etc.), which might come from duddle, a dialect word meaning to trick, and/or diddle / duddle (to totter), from Middle English dideren (to shake, quiver, tremble) and bididren (to seduce, deceive), from Old English bedidrian, bedyderian (to trick, deceive) [source].

A diddle is also something that drummers do involving two consecutive notes played by the same hand. Related drumming terms include paradiddle, which involves playing four even strokes in the order ‘right left right right’ or ‘left right left left’ [source], and paradiddle-diddle, which involves playing six even strokes in the order ‘right left right right left left’ or ‘left right left left right right’ [source].

Another diddlesome word is diddle-daddle, which means to dilly-dally, shilly-shally, dawdle, waste time or procrastinate, something I’m quite good at [source].

Incidentally, shilly-shally is a reduplication of ‘Shall I?”, and used to be Shill-I-shall-I [source].

Muchedumbre

11 July 202415 July 2024 By Simon

In one of the Spanish lessons I did on Duolingo this morning, I came across the interesting word muchedumbre, and thought I’d write a post about it.

Muchedumbre [mutʃeˈðumbɾe] means crowd, throng, multitude, mob, herd, or flock (of birds). It comes from Old Spanish muchedumne, muchidumne, from Latin multitūdinem (a great number [of people], multitude, numerousness, crowd, mob, throng), from multus (much, many), from Proto-Italic *moltos (much, many), from Proto-Indo-European *ml̥tós (crumbled, crumpled), from *mel- (to worry, be late, hesitate) [source].

Words from the same roots possibly include mejor (better, best), muy (very), mucho (much, a lot of, many) and multitud (multitude, crowd, a lot, loads) in Spanish, multitude in English, and mieux (better, best) in French [source].

Incidentally, if you’re keen on crowds, you might like to darse un baño de multitudes (to mingle with the crowd) [source], or darse un baño de masas (to go on a walkabout) [source]. Un baño de masas can also mean ‘to walk into the crowd (by a famous person)’ [source]. This might attract una muchedumbre de admiradores (a crowd of admirers).

I tend to avoid crowds, which isn’t difficult living in a small city in the wilds of north Wales. How about you?

Jentacularity

3 July 20243 July 2024 By Simon

In this post, we’re discussing things jentacular and prandial.

Jentacular / Prandial

You may have heard of the words preprandial (occurring before a meal, especially dinner) and/or postprandial (after a meal, especially after dinner), how about prandial or jentacular?

Prandial means “Of or pertaining to a meal, especially dinner.” It comes from Late Latin prandialis, or from Latin prandium (late breakfast; lunch, any meal, fodder), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pr̥h₂mós (first) and *h₁ed- (to eat) [source].

Words from the same roots include pranzo (lunch or dinner) in Italian, pranzu (dinner, lunch) in Maltese, and prânz (lunch, noon, midday) in Romanian [source].

Jentacular is an archaic word that means “Of or pertaining to breakfast; specifically, one taken early in the morning or immediately upon getting up.” It comes from Latin iēntāculum (breakfast), from ientō (I breakfast), a form of ieientō (to eat breakfast), from Proto-Italic *jagjentō, from PIE *h₁yaǵ- (to sacrifice, worship) [source].

Words from the same roots include diner, dinner and jejune (lacking matter, naive, simplistic) in English, jantar (dinner, to dine) in Portuguese, xantar (dinner, lunch) in Galician, déjeuner (to [eat/have] lunch, to have breakfast) in French [source].

Apparently in ancient Rome, the first meal of the day, which was eaten at about sunrise, was called iēntāculum. It usually consisted of bread, fruit or leftovers from the night before. At around noon, people would have a light meal called prandium, and at about sunset they had their main meal or cēna (dinner, supper). They may have had another light meal later in the evening as well. Originally, the main meal was eaten at midday, but later moved to later in the day [source].

Are there interesting meal-related words in other languages?

New Old Words

26 June 2024 By Simon

I spent last week in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland learning some more Irish, and learning about the area where I was, Glencolmcille (Gleann Cholm Cille in Irish). I had a great time, met some interesting people, and saw some beautiful places.

The course I did this time is called Language and Landscape: The Heritage of Gleann Cholm Cille / Teanga agus Timpeallacht: Oidhreacht Ghleann Cholm Cille. It involves Irish language classes in the mornings, and walks, talks, trips and other activities in afternoons and evenings. It’s run by Oideas Gael, an Irish language and culture centre in the southwest of Donegal which is celebrating its 40th year this year. I’ve been there for 16 of those years: every year from 2005 to 2019, and in 2024.

In previous years I’ve done courses there in Irish language, harp and bodhrán playing, and Irish sean-nós singing. I always enjoy my time there, which is why I keep going back. Most of the people there were from Ireland, and there were also people from the USA, UK, France, Canada, Portugal, Austria and Russia.

So, as well as practising my Irish, I got to speak other languages like French, German and Japanese. In class our teacher also taught as a few interesting words in Ulster Scots.

These include:

gollumpus = an ungainly person; a large, loutish, uncoordinated person
gomeral = a fool, simpleton lout
glype, glipe = a stupid and annoying person
clart = mud, mire; a lump or clot of something disagreeable or distasteful; a big, dirty, untidy person

Gomeral is a diminutive of Middle English gōme (man, warrior, husband, male servant), from Old English guma (male, hero), from Proto-Germanic *gumô (man, person), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰmṓ (man, person) [source].

Clart comes from Middle English *clart, from biclarten (to cover or smear with dirt) [source].

I’m not sure where the other words come from.

One thing we did in class was to come up with some new proverbs in Irish. Incidentally, the Irish word for proverb is seanfhocal, which literally means “old word”. So here are a few new old words:

Ní aon maitheas an chomhad a shabháil agus an riomhaire múchta agat.
There’s no good in saving the file when you’ve turned off the computer.
Ní léiríonn solas an scáileáin bealach éinne.
The light of the screen shows no one the way.
Is fearr traein amháin ná míle gluaisteán.
One train is better than 1,000 cars.

Ireland / Éire

14 June 202414 June 2024 By Simon

I’m off to Ireland tomorrow for a week of learning Irish and learning about the landscape of Glencolumcile (Gleann Cholm Cille) in Donegal. I’ve been there many times before – every year from 2005 to 2019, but this is the first since then. I’ll probably see quite a few people I know, and meet some new ones as well, and I’m looking forward to it.

I rarely get to speak much Irish in Bangor. There are a few Irish speakers here, and we conversations in Irish occasionally. Apart from that, I sometimes listen to Irish songs and Irish language radio, and have been brushing up my Irish on Duolingo recently.

While I’m there, I probably won’t have a lot of time to work on Omniglot. Normal service will resume after I get back.

Earthlings and Other Lings

12 June 202412 June 2024 By Simon

Greetings fellow Earthlings and anyone else who might be reading this. Did you know that this word originally meant farmer?

These days in Science Fiction, an Earthling is “an inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of another planet; specifically, a sentient member of any species native to Earth.”

In the 17th century is referred to “A person who is materialistic or worldly; a worldling.” and in the 16th century, it referred to “An inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of heaven.” [source]

Going back further, it meant one who tills the earth, a farmer, a husbandman or a ploughman. It comes from Middle English erthling (farmer, ploughman), from Old English ierþling, eorþling (farmer, husbandman, ploughman), from eorþe (ground, dirt, planet Earth), from PIE *h₁er- (earth) [source]

Other interesting words suffixed with -ling include:

puffling = a young puffin
princeling = a minor or unimportant prince
sportling = a little person or creature engaged in sports or in play
shaveling = someone with all or part of their head shaved, notably a tonsured clergyman; a priest or monk (often derogatory).
wildling = a wild plant or animal
witling = a person who feigns wit, pretending or aspiring to be witty, a person with very little wit.
godling = a young god, a minor divinity, a local or inferior god, a.k.a. godlet, godkin

There’s also underling (a subordinate or person of lesser rank or authority), and it’s rare antonym overling (a superior, ruler, master) [source]

You can see more of these on: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ling#English

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Adventures in the world of words and language

Category: English