Category: Etymology

Ukuleles and machetes

By Simon

My new ukulele

Yesterday I bought myself a ukulele, something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while. I already play the guitar and mandolin, and had been thinking about trying other stringed instruments, such as the ukulele, banjo and bouzouki. A while ago I saw a poster about the Bangor Uke Club / Clwb Uke Bangor and thought it might be cool to join it, and yesterday I finally did.

The usual story is that the word ukulele (/juːkəˈleɪliː/) comes from the Hawaiʻian words ʻuku /Ɂuku/ – louse, flea; small, tiny, and lele /lele/ – to fly, jump, leap, hop, skip, swing, bounce, and many other meanings.

The OED describes the ukulele as “a small four-stringed Hawaiʻian guitar that is a development of a Portuguese instrument introduced to the island c1879”, and the Online Etymology Dictionary says that the name ukulele or ‘leaping flea’ comes from the rapid movement of the fingers used to play it.

Braguinha

According to the ‘Ukulele Guild of Hawai’i, ‘ukuleles developed from a type of small guitar known as machete do braga or braguinha (see right) from Madeira. They also mention that there is some uncertainity about the origins of the name ukulele – one story is that a certain Edward Purvis, an English solider who was assistant chamberlain to the Hawaiʻian King Kalākaua in the 1880s, and who was a small man with a lively playing style on this instrument, was nicknamed ‘ukulele (dancing flea) by the Hawaiʻians, who gave the same name to the instrument.

The earliest written reference to this instrument, in a travel book about Hawai‘i, dates back to 1891 and it was spelt ukelele rather than ukulele, a word which didn’t appear in print until 1895 in the Hawaiʻian Gazette. Both spellings were used interchangeably for a period, and the former possibly comes from the Hawaiʻian word ʻukē – to swing, sway; tap, rap, tick, thud.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain mention a number of possible origins of the word ukulele: a certain João Fernandes from Madeira was nicknamed ‘ukulele (dancing flea) by the Hawai‘ians, who were impressed by his virtuosity and speed on the braguinha, and the way his fingers jumped about, and the name became associated with the instrument as well. Alternatively it was Edward Purvis who acquired the nickname. Or that the name comes from uku (a tribute, reward, fee) and lele (to land, disembark); or from ʻūkēkē lele (‘dancing ʻūkēkē’ – a type of musical bow); or that Gabriel Davian and Judge W. L. Wilcox coined and translated the name, joking that the way one scratched at it, the instrument must have been a jumping flea.

Other Hawaiʻian expressions featuring lele include:

– lele māmā – to fly swiftly, dart
– hoʻo.lele – to cause to fly; to fly, as a kite; to disembark, to embark, as on a project; to palpitate; to enlarge or project, as pictures
– hoʻolele leo – radio broadcast, broadcaster, microphone, ventriloquism, ventriloquist
– hoʻolele hua kēpau -to set type
– mea hoʻolele leo – microphone

Calembour

By Simon

Calembour /kalɑ̃buʀ/, nm – Jeu de mots fondé sur la différence de sens entre des mots qui se prononcent de la même façon (ex. : personnalité et personne alitée) (de Larousse).

This is a French word I learnt last night that means pun or, “a play on words based on the difference in meaning between words that are pronounced the same”. The example above doesn’t work as a pun in English – personnalité = personality and personne alitée = a bedridden person.

Calembour first appears in a letter by Denis Diderot from 1768. According to Webster’s Online Dictionary, it comes from a character known as “der Pfaff vom Kahlenberg” (the Jester of Kahlenberg), a.k.a. Wigand von Theben, in a German story called Tyll Eulenspiegel (Owl’s Looking-glass). The Jester of Kahlenberg, or Calembourg in French, spent time in Paris during the reign of Louis XV and was known for his puns and blunders.

The English word pun (/pʌn/, /pən/) is of uncertain origin. The OED suggests that it possibly comes from punctilio (a minute detail of action or conduct). Other possible origins of pun, discussed in The Pun Also Rises by John Pollack, include:

– pundit, from the Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita – “a learned Hindu versed in Sanskrit”), although the Sanskrit word for pun is श्लेष (śleṣa)
– pun, Old English for “to pound”
– पुण्ड् (puṇḍ), a Sanskrit word meaning “to heap up together”
– punctilio, Latin for “fine point”
– pun, an Anglo-Indian word meaning “a stake played for a price; a sum” – named after a type of Indian coin.

There’s also discussing of the etymology of pun on the OUPblog.

The Pun Also Rises is an interesting and pun-filled history of puns and punning which suggests that they have been around perhaps since language first emerged, and that the dismissive attitude and groans which they often evoke are a relatively recent development. The author argues that by forming links between unlikely things, puns can stimulate creative thinking and mental agility, and that they can also help children to develop their linguistic skills – knock knock jokes (invented by William Shakespeare), are perennial favourites for this.

Golems and trolls

By Simon

I’ve always thought that the word golem was pronounced /ˈgɔləm/ with a short o as in doll, probably influenced by Tolkein’s gollum, and my preference for northern vowels. Yesterday however, while watching Going Postal, a film based on the Terry Pratchett’s book by the same name, I noticed that some other people pronounce it /ˈɡoʊləm/.

According to Wikipedia, golem /ˈɡoʊləm/ comes from Hebrew and appears as גלמי in the Bible (Psalms 139:16) and means ‘my unshaped form’. This became the Yiddish word גולם (goylem), and in Modern Hebrew גלמ (golem) means “dumb” or “helpless”.

According to the OED, golem is pronounced /ˈgəʊləm/ or /ˈgɔɪləm/ and comes from Hebrew גלמ (gōlem – shapeless mass) via the Yiddish גולם (goylem).

I pronounce troll /tɾɔl/, rhyming it with doll, whereas I’ve heard other people pronounce it /tɾəʊl/, rhyming it dole.

Troll /trəʊl/, a being from Norse mythology, comes from the Old Norse trǫll, though only arrived in English, probably from Swedish, during the 19th century.

How do you pronounce golem and troll?

Climbing

By Simon

Yesterday I climbed Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) for the first time. It was a warm sunny day, though a bit hazy, and the views were spectacular – there are some photos on Flickr. When I say that I climbed Snowdon, what kind of activity does that conjure up for you?

I went up the Miners Track from Pen y Pass and then descended by way of the Llanberis Path. In places the Miners Track is very step and hands are needed to help you up or down, while you can walk up and down the Llanberis Path relatively easily, or even run, if you’re feeling very energetic. So no actual climbing, as in climbing up or down rock faces, was involved. Other routes up Snowdon might require that kind of climbing.

The OED defines climb as:

1. To raise oneself by grasping or clinging, or by the aid of hands and feet; ‘to mount by means of some hold or footing’ (Johnson); to creep up; to ascend, come, or go up, a perpendicular or steep place.
2. To ascend (anything steep) by hands and feet, creep up; to get to the top or summit of; to mount, scale.

It comes from the Old English climb-an, clamb (clǫmb), clumbon, clumben, which is believed to be a nasalized form of the Germanic *klîƀan (to cleave).

So I did climb in the sense that I ascended or scaled the mountain, though didn’t need to use my hands or to grasp or cling very much, and I didn’t creep up either.

Rheithgor

By Simon

I heard the word rheithgor (/ˈr̩əiθgɔr/) on Radio Cymru this morning in the context of a report on a trial, and guessed that it meant ‘jury’. The second element, gor, comes from côr (/koːr/) (choir, circle), and the first element, rheith, appears in such words as rheithfawr (greatly just), rheithiad (regulation), rheithio (to fix a law), rheithiol (established as law), and also in rheitheg (rhetoric) and rheithegydd (rhetorician). So rheith seems to have something to do with justice and law and a rheithgor could be a ‘law choir’.

Another Welsh word that includes the element côr is pwyllgor /ˈpʊɨɬgɔr/ (committee) – the pwyll part means ‘discretion; steadiness’, and a related word, pwyllo, means ‘to steady, consider, reason, reflect’ – things that committees might do.

The English word jury comes from the Anglo-Norman jure(e), from the Old French jurée (oath, juridical inquiry, inquest), from the medieval Latin jūrāta, from iūrāre (to swear), from iūs (law, duty), from the Proto-Indo-European *yAus- (ritual purity; supreme justice), which is also the root of just and justice.

The English word choir comes from the Middle English quer(e), from the Old French cuer (church choir), from the Latin chorus (a company of dancers, dance; company, band) from the Greek χορός (dance, company of dancers or singers). Chorus comes from the same root.

Sources: Y Geiriadur Mawr, A Pocket Dictionary (Welsh-English), Oxford English Dictionary, Wiktionary

Tuyau

By Simon

Last night I discovered the French word tuyau when looking for drain pipe (tuyau d’écoulement). I hadn’t come across the word before and wasn’t at all sure how to pronounce it. According to my French dictionary it’s pronounced /tɥijo/ – the second symbol represents a voiced labial-palatal approximant, a semi-vowel made with the tongue close to the hard palate and rounded at the lips. Apart from French, it is only used in Mandarin Chinese and Abkhaz, at least according to Wikipedia. Do you know if it is used in any other languages?

tuyau means pipe; a length of piping; a length of rubber tubing; stem (of pipe); flute; (insider) tip. It appears in such expressions as:

– tuyau d’alimentation – feeder pipe
– tuyau d’arrosage – hosepipe; garden hose
– tuyau de cheminée – chimney pipe
– tuyau de descente – downpipe; fall pipe
– tuyau d’échappement – exhaust (pipe)
– tuyau d’orgue – organ pipe
– (chapeau) tuyau de poêle – stovepipe (hat)
– tuyautage – fluting (grooves or furrows, as in cloth); goffering (an ornamental frill made by pressing pleats); giving of a tip; putting in the know
– tuyauter – to flute; to goffer*; to give sb a tip
– tuyauterie – piping; (organ) pipes
– un tuyauteur – informant
– J’ai quelques tuyaux pour toi – I have a few tips for you
– un tuyau crevé – a bad tip
– avoir des tuyaux – to be in the know
– c’est un tuyau increvable – straight from the horse’s mout

Tuyau comes from the Old French tuel (tube, pipe), from Proto-Romance *þûta, from Old High German tûda.

* goffer means to press pleats into (a frill) ; to decorate (the gilt edges of a book) with a repeating pattern; an ornamental frill made by pressing pleats; the decoration formed by goffering books; the iron or tool used in making goffers, and isn’t a word I’ve come across before. It comes from the French gaufrer (to impress a pattern), from gaufre, from the Middle Low German wafel, the root of waffle and wafer.

Sources: About.com, Wiktionary, French Word-A-Day, Reverso, Dicocitations

The worm that turned

By Simon

cartoon worm

While working in my garden this afternoon I dug up lots of worms, so I thought it might be interesting to find out more about the word worm.

Meanings of worm (/wɜːm/ /wɝm/) include:

– a member of the genus Lumbricus; a slender, creeping, naked, limbless animal, usually brown or reddish, with a soft body divided into a series of segments; an earthworm. More widely, any annelid, terrestrial, aquatic, or marine;
– any animal that creeps or crawls; a reptile; an insect;
– serpent, snake, dragon;
– four-footed animals considered noxious or objectionable.

Some of these meanings are archaic or obsolete.

There have been many variant spellings, including wirm, wrim, wyrme, weorm, werm, werme, wurm, wurem, orm, wrm, wourme, woirme, woorme, worme, and it finally settled on worm.

Worm comes from the Old English wyrm (a serpent, snake, dragon), from the Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (serpent, worm), from the Proto-Indo-European *wrmi-/*wrmo- (worm), possibly from *wer- (to turn). *wrmi-/*wrmo- is also the root of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic word gorm (blue/black), the Welsh gwrm (dusky), the Danish/Norwegian/Swedish orm (snake), the Latin vermis, which is the root of the English words vermilion and vermin, and quite a few other words in various languages.

Some interesting worm factoids

– there are some 2,700 different types of worms
– an acre of land can contain over a million worms
– Cleopatra VII made the export of worms from Egypt a capital crime as she realized the important roll they play in keeping soil fertile
– Charles Darwin studied worms for many years and concluded that they are one of the most important creatures on earth.

Sources: Oxford English Dictionary, Online Etymology Dictionary, Wikipedia, Word-Origins.com, Eartworm Farming, Worm Facts

Noce

By Simon

Noce /nɔs/ is a French word I learnt last night meaning “wedding” (ceremony) or wedding party. Here are some examples of usage:

– être de la noce – to be (a member) of the wedding party, to be among the wedding guests
– être de noce – to be invited to a wedding
– aller à la noce de quelqun – to go to somebody’s wedding
– repas/robe/nuit de noce – wedding banquet/dress/night
– noce d’argent / d’or etc – silver/golden wedding
– fare la noce – to live it up / have a wild time
– il n’était pas à la noce – he wasn’t enjoying himself / was have an uncomfortable time
– il n’avait jamais été à pareille noce – he’d never been so happy / he was having the time of his life

Noce, sounds like the Welsh word for night nos, so when I first heard it I thought nights and not weddings were being discussed. It comes from the Latin word nuptiae (wedding/marriage), which is derived from nubere (to veil/hide) – this goes back to a Roman custom that married women wore veils. Nuptiae is also the root of the English word nuptial (to marry; to speak of a wedding; wedding), and of the French word nuage (cloud).

An alternative to noce is mariage, which can refer both to the institution of marriage and the marriage/wedding ceremony. The English word wedding comes from the Old English węddian (to wed), while marriage comes from the French mariage.

Ductus

By Simon

I came across the word ductus today in an interesting article about the origins of the writing. The articles focuses particularly on the development of the Latin/Roman alphabet and traces it’s origins back to ancient Egypt.

Ductus /ˈdʌktəs/ means:

1. the number of strokes that make up a written letter, and the direction, sequence and speed in which they are written
2. a subtle reduction of weight towards the middle of the stroke of the letter
3. (medicine) a duct, tube or canal in the body

Etymology: from Latin, perfect passive participle of dūcō (to lead), from the Proto-Indo-European root *deuk- (to lead), which is also the root of duct, and duke, via the Old French duc and the Latin dux

[Sources: wiktionary and myEtymology.com]

The article uses it in the second sense when talking about how letters shapes have changed and been simplified over time.

The first sense could be used when talking about Chinese Hanzi / Japanese Kanji / Korean Hanja, as the direction and sequence of strokes used to write such characters is fixed and has to be memorised when learning them, and the number of strokes is used to order them in dictionaries and indices.

Incidentally, I’ve just added a page about the Proto-Sinaitic / Proto-Canaanite script , one of the earliest alphabetic scripts, and one of the scripts mentioned in the article.

Hen’s nests and potholes

By Simon

Nid de poule

One French expression that came up last night was nid-de-poule (hen’s nest), which sounds much more interesting than it’s English equivalent, pothole.

The English word pothole can refer to a number of things, including:

– a hole formed in rock by stones in water or glacial erosion;
– underground passages, shafts and chambers formed by water erosion;
– a pond formed by water collecting in a natural hollow (mainly in North American English)
– a shallow hole dug in the ground while prospecting (mainly in Australia)
– a depression or hollow in a road or track
[source]

Another French word for the kind of pothole that occurs in road is fondrière, from fondre (to melt), while the kind of pothole found underground is a caverne, grotte or gouffre. The French equivalent of potholing is spéléologie and a spéléleogue / spéléo (potholer) is said to faire de la spéléologie (to go potholing), an activity known as spelunking or caving in American English. The word speleology is also used to some extent in English and comes, via the French spéléleogue and Latin spēlæum, from the Greek σπήλαιον (spí̱laion – cave) plus λογία (logia). The adjective spelaean means ‘cave-dwelling’.

The word potholing apparently originated in the north of England and refers to the act of exploring potholes, which in this case refers to vertical caves.

Do any of you go caving / potholing / spelunking? If you do, what do you call it?

Are there interesting words for potholes (in roads) in other languages?