Le trac

An interesting French word I discovered the other day is trac /tʁak/, which means nerves, stage fright or performance anxiety. Some expressions incoporating this word include:

– avoir le trac = to feel nervous; to get an attack of nerves; to have stage fright
– j’ai le trac = I’m nervous; I have butterflies in my stomach*; I have the jitters
– tout à trac = out of the blue

*If people have butterflies in their stomachs when feeling nervous, what do butterflies have?

This word first appeared in writing in 1830 and it’s origins are uncertain. It perhaps comes from the word tracas (anxiety).

Sources: Reverso, Linternaute, CNRTL.

What expressions do you use to describe being nervous or anxious?

Do you suffer from stage-fright / performance anxiety?

I used to be get very nervous when I had to speak or sing in front of others, but now only get nervous before and afterwards – while I’m speaking, singing or playing an instrument I feel calm and enjoy it.

Gendarmes et policiers

Yesterday there was some discussion of the police at the French Conversation Group – one of the members is a former policeman. We use the word policier, but later I remembered that another French word for policeman is gendarme, and it suddenly dawned on me that gendarme probably comes from gens d’armes (armed man). I checked this today and it’s right. It’s not something I’ve really thought about before, but when I did think about it, it seemed so obvious. Do you find that with words sometimes?

According to Reverso, French country police officers are called les gendarmes, but those in towns are called les agents de police or les policiers. A community police officer is un îlotier and a traffic police officer is un agent de la circulation.

According to the OED and the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word police comes from the Middle French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (citizenship, political organization, government), which is also the root of policy, politics, politican, etc. and comes from the Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration) from πολίτης (polites – citizen) from πολίς (polis – city, state), from the Proto-Indo-European *p(o)lH- (enclosed space, often on high ground).

Baguette de tambour

Les baguettes de tambour, de http://francais.istockphoto.com/illustration-16429730-tambour-jouet-baguette-tambour-un-seul-objet-instrument-musique.php

Yesterday I discovered that in French a drumstick is a baguette de tambour, which conjured up images of French drummers playing their drums with long loaves of bread.

The word baguette comes from the Italian word bacchetta (little rod), a diminutive of bacchio (rod), from the Latin baculum (stick, staff). As well as meaning a type of French bread, it can also refer to “a small moulding of semicircular section” and “a gem, ususually a diamond, cut in a long rectangular shape” [Source: OED].

The French word tambour, which is also found in English and means a frame used in embroidery or a drum, comes from the Persian word tabῑr or from the Arabic word ṭubūl, which both mean ‘drum’. The word tambourine comes from the same root, as does timbre [source].

Some more drum-related French vocabulary:

– le tambour = drum
– la batterie = drum kit / drums
– Je joue de la batterie = I play the drums
– tambouriner = to drum
– pianoter / tambouriner sur la table = to drum one’s fingers on the table
– le tambourin = tambourine
– le (joueur de) tambour = drummer
– batteur (-euse) = drummer (in rock/jazz band)
– le roulement de tambour = drum roll
– la caisse claire = side/snare drum
– la grosse caisse = bass drum
– la boîte à rythme = drum machine
– le tambour de frein = brake drum
– le bidon de pétrole = oil drum

Source: Reverso

Parades

Last weekend I saw a couple of parades – a small and rather damp one in Bangor on Saturday that was part of the Bangor Carnival – and a rather bigger and more elaborate one on Sunday in Manchester that was part of the Manchester Day celebrations. This got me wondering about the origins of the word parade.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary parade meant “a show of bravado” and “an assembly of troops for inspections” in the 1650s, and comes from the French word parade (a display, show, military parade). This comes either via Middle French, via the Italian parate (a warding or defending, a garish setting forth) or the Spanish parada (a staying or stopping), from the Vulgar Latin *parata, from the Latin parer (arrange, prepare, adorn). Parade came to be applied to non-military processions in the 1670s.

Parer comes from the Latin parare (to make ready), via the Old French parer (to arrange, prepare, trim), from the Proto-Indo-European root *per- (to bring forward/forth).

Pozo

Last night I learnt a song, En el pozo María Luisa (In the Maria Lusia mine), from a Spanish friend. This song, which is also known as Nel Pozu Maria Luisa or Santa Bárbara Bendita, comes from Asturias in north west Spain and is usually sung in Asturian, Spanish or a mixture of the two. It is the story of a mining accident in the Pozu Maria Luisa coal mine, in the town of Ciaño in the municipality of Langreo.

While I was able to understand most of the words after hearing them a few times, some of them puzzled me. For example, when I heard the word pozo (mine) it sounded to me more like porzo, which I couldn’t find in my Spanish dictionaries when I looked. Eventually I found pozo when looking in the English-Spanish section for the word mine. Another word for mine is mina.

Pozo /’poθo/ is a well; a deep pool, the deep part of a river; a shaft, pit or mine; or the hold (of a ship). It comes from the Latin word puteus (pit, dungeon, well, cistern).

Expressions containing pozo include:

– pozo artesiano = artesian well
– pozo de petróleo = oil well
– pozo ciego/negro = cesspool
– caer en el pozo = to fall into oblivion
– pozo de aire = air shaft
– pozo de registro/visita = manhole / inspection hatch
– ser un pozo de ciencia = to be immensely learned
– es un pozo de maldad = he is utterly wicked

I assumed that the song was in Spanish, and that the words that puzzled me they were just ones I hadn’t heard before, like pozo. Now I realise that some of the words might have been Asturian – the Spanish friend who taught me the song is from Asturias.

Honchos

I thought that the word honcho as in head honcho (big leader / big cheese) came from Japanese. The OED and the Online Etymology Dictionary both say that it comes from the Japanese word 班長 (hanchō) or squad / team leader, and that it was borrowed by American servicemen in Japan and Korea in 1947-1953.

However, according to The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky, which I’m reading at the moment, the word honcho is a version of the Basque word jauntxo /xaunʧo/, a wealthy. powerful, rural landowner – a word with a ironic, negative undertone. From jaun (sir / lord / god). This sounds kind of plausible, though I haven’t found any other sources which make the same claim.

The book is interesting and includes quite a few bits of Basque language, and even some recipes. It is also somewhat biased in favour of the Basques.

Squeegee

A squeegee

The other day I discovered that the thing I clean my windows with is a squeegee – I was familiar with the name, and knew it had something to do with cleaning, but wasn’t sure exactly what a squeegee was. From the sound of the name I guessed that it was a soft, squeezy kind of thing, which doesn’t quite match a window cleaning squeegee.

According to Wikipedia:

A squeegee, squilgee or sometimes squimjim, is a tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface. It is used for cleaning and in printing.

The original squilgee was a long-handled, wooden-bladed tool fishermen used to scrape fish blood and scales from their boat deck, and to push water off the deck after it had been washed.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word squeegee come perhaps from the nautical word squeege (to press), a strengthened form of squeeze, which the OED suggests is a strengthened form or quease (to press, squeeze).

Are there any tools of other implements you use that you don’t know the names of?

Out in the sticks

One of the expressions we discussed this week at the French conversation group was out in the sticks, which is en pleine cambrousse (‘in full countryside’) or au milieu de la cambrousse (‘in the middle of the countryside’).

La cambrousse comes from the Provençal cambrousso (hovel, storeroom), from cambra (bedroom). The sense of ‘province / countryside’ perhaps comes from the slang of travelling entertainers (saltimbanques) [source].

The expression ‘in the sticks’ was apparently coined in the USA and was first used in the Florence Times Daily in November 1897

… he gathered from 1 1/2 acres this year 21 barrels of corn. If any man “away in the sticks” can beat this, in the language of “Philander Doesticks,” we exclaim, “let him stand forward to de rear.”

At first it was associated mainly with baseball and ‘the sticks’ referred to exhibition games played in county locations. Later it came to refer to any out-of-the-way location.

Other ways to express this in English include ‘in the middle of nowhere’, ‘the back of beyond’ – are there others you know in English or other languages?

Today and tomorrow

Yesterday a friend asked me about the origins of the words today and tomorrow, and whether the to- part of them was orginally the. You sometimes come across expressions like ‘on the morrow’, and words appear with hypens in older texts: to-day and to-morrow.

According to the OED, today comes from the Old English tó dæg – the dæg part means day and the part means “at/in/during (a time), or on (a day). Tomorrow comes from to morȝen or to morwen – the morrow part means morning.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, today comes from the Old English todæge or to dæge (on (the) day), and Tomorrow comes from the middle English to morewe, from the Old English to morgenne (on (the) morrow), with morgenne being the dative of morgen (morning). They were written as two words until 16th century, then hypenated until the early 20th century.

In German (der) Morgen means morning, and morgen means tomorrow, and tomorrow morning is morgen früh or morgen vormittag, not morgen Morgen!

In French the word for today, aujourd’hui, comes from the expression au jour d’hui (on the day of today) – hui comes from the Latin hŏdĭē (today), a contraction of hŏc diē (this day). The Italian word for today, oggi, comes from the same root, and the expression al giorno d’oggi (nowadays, these days, today) has the same structure as aujourd’hui, though hasn’t replaced oggi as aujourd’hui has replaced hui in French. The Spanish and Portuguese words for today, hoy and hoje, also come from the same root and are used without embellishment. The Romanian word for today, astăzi, comes from a different root though – the Latin ista die (that day).

Sources: Wiktionnaire, Wikizionario, Wikcionario, Wikcionário & Wikționar.

Word skipping to Venus

I was asked today about the origins of the word worship. The person who asked was told by a highly-educated minister that “worship” is derived from an old English word, “word-skip”. Supposedly, “word-skip” means “word shaper” or “shaper of words”.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary: worship comes from the Old English worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (West Saxon), “condition of being worthy, honor, renown”, from weorð (worthy), and -scipe, “state, condition of being”. The sense of “reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being” is first recorded in about 1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful (c.1300). The verb to worship first appears in writing from about 1200. The word weorð comes from the Proto Germanic *werthaz (toward, opposite), which is possibly a derivative of Proto-Indo-European word *wert- (to turn, wind). from *wer- (to turn, bend).

The OED and the Collins Dictionary give the same etymology, and the OED lists the numerous ways worship was written in Middle English, including worðscipe, worðschipe, worðschepe, worþssipe, worþschip, wortscip, wortschyp, worsipe, worssipe, and so on.

The Dictionary of Word Origins says the worship originally meant “worthiness, distinction, credit, dignity” in Old English. Later is came to mean “respect or reverence”, and was used in religious contexts from the 13th century, and that is was used as a verb from the 12th century.

A related word is venerate, from the Latin venerāt- from venerārī/venerāre (to reverence, worship, adore), which comes from venus (beauty, love desire), from the Proto-Indo-European base *wen- (to strive after, wish, desire, be satisfied) [source]. This is also the root of the words for worship in Italian (venerare), Portuguese (venerar) and French (vénérer). The equivalent in Spanish is adorar or rendir culto a.