Category: English

When is a blog not a blog?

By Simon

When I meet people who are familiar with my website, some of them say how much they like my blog. When I ask them what they like about it, they mention things that are on my website, rather than on this blog, so I soon realise that they’re using the word blog to refer to my website, and possibly this blog, although not all of them are aware of the blog’s existence.

To me the distinction between my website and my blog(s) is clear. They may be on the same server, but they look different and have different functions. I’ve noticed that on some other websites though there isn’t such a clear distinction between blogs and other pages, especially on ones that have grown from blogs. Maybe that’s why people get confused.

Sometimes people tell me about mistakes on other sites which are linked to on Omniglot, thinking that I have something to do with them and can make changes on them. I understand why this happens as they might not realise that they’re on a different site.

None of these things are particularly important, but it’s interesting, to me at least, to notice them.

Is there a distinction between the words for website and blog in other languages?

Suspending disbelief

By Simon

One of the things we talked about in the French conversation group this week was suspending disbelief, which is accepter les invraisemblances in French. That is “accepting the improbabilities”. Another way to say this in French is suspension d’incrédulité.

The word invraisemblance also means unlikeliness or inverisimilitude. Related words include invraisemblable (unlikely, incredible, implausible, improbable) and invraisemblablement (implausible, unlikely).

Its antonym is vraisemblance (plausibility, verisimilitude, likelihood). It comes from vrai (true, real), plus sembler (to seem).

Expressions incorporating vraisemblance include:

– selon toute vraisemblance = in all likelihood, apparently
– essai de vraisemblance = plausibility test
– contrôle de vraisemblance = absurdity check

Sources: Reverso, Linguee and Wikipedia

Apparently the English phrase suspension of disbelief was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions

See: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/suspension-of-disbelief.html

Are there interesting ways to express this idea in other languages?

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
le jeu de rôle role playing chwarae rhan, chwarae rôl
accepter les invraisemblances to suspend disbelief
nom à rallonge double-barrelled surname enw dwbl (baril)
fusil à canon double double-barrelled shotgun gwn haels dau/dwy faril, dwbl baril
l’épaule shoulder ysgwydd
l’omoplate (f); la scapulaire shoulder blade (human); scapular palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd
le paleron shoulder blade (animal) palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd
railler; se moquer de qn/qch;
se payer la tête de qn		 to make fun of sb/sth gwneud hwyl/sbort am ben rhywun;
chwerthin am ben rhywun
(liquide) trouble cloudy (liquid) cymylog
furtif stealth lladraddaidd
interdit banned gwarharddedig

Are you a phenom?

By Simon

I came across an interesting word in an article about hyperpolyglots I read today (it’s an old article, but I only just found it) – phenoms, which appears in the following sentence:

TIME spoke to Erard about phenoms who can speak more languages than they have fingers, whether anyone can do it and where the upper limits of human potential lie.

According to Dictionary.com, phenom [fɪˈnɒm] is an abbreviation of phenomenon and refers especially to a young prodigy. The definitions are “a person or thing of outstanding abilities or qualities” (informal), or “A phenomenally skilled or impressive person; a performing wonder, esp in sports”.

Apparently it comes from US baseball slang, and was first recorded in 1890.

Merriam-Webster defines a phenom as “a person who is very good at doing something (such as a sport)” or “a person of phenomenal ability or promise”.

Have you come across this word before?

Les chuchoteuses

By Simon

Lindsay et les chuchoteuses

On Rue Staint-Paul in Vieux Montréal there’s a statue of three women having a gossip. It’s known as ‘Les chuchoteuses‘ or ‘The whisperers’. It’s also known as the “fat ladies talking statue”. It’s by Rose-Aimée Bélanger, a sculptor from Ontario, and was installed as part of a 2006 initiative to highlight some of Old Montreal’s forgotten spaces.

The word chuchoteuses [ʃyʃɔtø:z] comes from chuchoter [ʃy.ʃɔ.te] (to whisper; to rustle), which is of imitative origin. Related words include chuchoterie (whispering), chuchotis (faint whispering), chuchotement (a whisper / murmur, rustling).

I like the sound of this word, and of the words for whisper in other languages:

– Italian / Portuguese / Spanish: sussurro, from Latin susurrus ‎(a humming, whispering)
– German: Flüstern
– Dutch: fluistering
– Welsh: sibrwd

What about in other languages?

The photo is one I took while exploring Montréal with Linsday Dow of Linsday Does Languages, who features in it.

Sources: Wiktionary and Reverso

Book hunting in Montreal

By Simon

Yesterday I spent the morning hunting for interesting language books with Lindsay Dow, of Lindsay Does Languages, Benny Lewis, of Fluent in 3 months, Steve Kaufmann, of lingq, and Josh Koehn from California.

The first book shop we went to had a good selection of books in and about a wide variety of languages, including Old Irish, Middle Welsh, Breton and Sanskrit. I resisted buying anything as I have no spare space in my bag, and already have plenty of language-related books at home.

After wandering around Vieux Montréal for a while we had lunch in a nice café, then Lindsay and I went to meet Moti Lieberman of The Ling Space, where there are videos which explain and discuss linguistic and language-related topics in an accessible way. I hadn’t heard of this site before, but will definitely have a look at some of the videos. It sounds very interesting.

In the evening we met up with Kris Broholm of Actual Fluency, Oli Richards of I will teach you a language, and some local friends of theirs for dinner in a vegetarian place on Rue Saint-Denis.

I’m taking it easy this morning, and after lunch will head to the airport – my plane leaves at 16:45, and I’ll arrive in Manchester at 07:50 tomorrow morning, as long as my flight from Paris isn’t affected by the planned strike by Air France staff.

Polyglotting in Montreal

By Simon

Yesterday was the first day of the North American Polyglot Symposium in Montreal. It’s taking place at Concordia University, which has two campuses – one downtown, and one quite a way out of town. I went to the out of town one by mistake, and walked a few miles to get there from the nearest Metro stop. When I got there I couldn’t any signs of the Symposium, and after wandering around for a while, I found someone to ask and they said it was probably at the other campus.

Fortunately as I was leaving a taxi was dropping someone off, so I jumped in and headed back into town. I arrived about 10 minutes before my presentation, the first of the day, was due to start. The presentation went well with some good discussion and quite a few people have told me that they found it interesting.

There were other presentations on various language-related topics yesterday, which were all quite interesting. One was in French, the rest were in English. The one in French was by a local guy with a strong Quebecois accent, which was a bit difficult to follow, but I was getting most of it by the end.

In the evening many of us trekked up Mont Royal, which has great views from the top. On the way down it rained quite heavily and people split up and wandered off in different groups. We eventually met up at a Spanish restaurant for tapas.

I met quite a few people I know from previous polyglot events, and plenty of new people, and I had conversations in English, French, Esperanto and Scottish Gaelic, and spoke bits of Russian, Portuguese, Japanese and Mandarin.

Are you sturggled?

By Simon

You may think I have misspelled the title of this post, and in a way I have, but I did so deliberately. The other day when typing struggle I accidentally typed sturggle. I thought that it looked like an interesting word, and wondered what it might mean.

Apparently I’m not the first person to come up with this word – according to the Urban Dictionary, sturggle means:

To be afflicted with a debilitating hangover to the point where you cannot speak.

I’ve never been sturggled in this sense.

Do you have any other suggestions as to what sturggle might mean?

Have you accidentally come up with any other new words?

Pauchle

By Simon

I came across an interesting Scots word yesterday – pauchle [ˈp(j)ɑxl] – which I needed to look up, although from the context you can get an idea of its meaning:

They’re hoping that they can pauchle the party rule book in order to insist that Corbyn must gain the support of at least 51 of the party’s Westminster and EU parliamentary contingent in order to stand again in a leadership contest. [from Wee Ginger Dug]

According to my Scots dictionary it means:

Pauchle (1) noun
1. a bundle, small load (of goods); the personal belongings of someone in service and living away from home, (usually) kept in a trunk
2. a small bundle or parcel of something; a quantity of something; a small quantity of something taken by an employee from his employer, either furtively or as a perquisite*
3. a packet (of letters)
4. a swindle, a piece

Pauchle (1) verb
1. to be guilty of a minor dishonesty, cheat; rig (an election)
2. to steal, embezzle, pocket
3. to shuffle (playing cards)

or

Pauchle (2) verb
1. to move feebly but persistently, shuffle, hobble, struggle along (pauchle alang, awa, on)
2. to struggle, strive, expend effort and energy
3. to work ineffectually, bungle, potter

If you are in a pauchle, you are in a chaotic or disorganized state, or behind with your work.

It is probably of onomatopoeic origin.

See also: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/pauchle_n1_v1
and http://caledonianmercury.com/2010/04/23/useful-scots-word-pauchle/006074

So it looks like quite a useful word. Are there other words for a little something you take from your employer?

*A perquisite is “a benefit which one enjoys or is entitled to on account of one’s job or position” [source]

Heavy Plant Crossing

By Simon

Heavy Plant Crossing Sign

If you saw this sign, what kind of plant(s) would you expect to be crossing?

In this context, plant refers to “a large, heavy machine or vehicle used in industry, for building roads, etc.” It can also mean “machines used in industry” or “a factory in which a particular product is made or power is produced” [source]

Apparently the first recorded use of plant for a factory dates from 1789 – this meaning developed from the idea of the factory being ‘planted’ [source]. Perhaps the meaning was extended to the machines used in factories, and to other large industrial machines.

Is plant used to refer to large machines only in the UK?