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

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?

Super Brows

31 May 2024 By Simon

Someone who is supercilious is arrogantly superior, haughty or shows contemptuous indifference.

Supercilious comes from the Latin superciliōsus (haughty, supercilious) from supercilium (eyebrow, will, pride, haughtiness, arrogance, sterness, superciliousness) from super- (above, over) and‎ cilium ( eyelid), from Proto-Italic *keljom, from PIE *ḱel-yo-m, from *ḱel- (to cover) [source].

Equivalents of supercilious in other languages include:

hooghartig (“high-hearted”) = haughty, supercilious in Dutch
hochnäsig (“high-nosed”) = snooty, stuck-up, haughty, supercilious, arrogant in German
kione-ard (“high-head”) = arrogant, chieftain, haughty, presumptuous, supercilious in Manx
ffroenuchel (“high-nostril”) = haughty, disdainful, supercilious in Welsh

The word cilium also exists in English, and means:

A short microscopic hairlike organelle projecting from a eukaryotic cell, which serve either for propulsion by causing currents in the surrounding fluid or as sensors.
One of the fine hairs along an insect’s wing.
Hairs or similar protrusions along the margin of an organ.
An eyelash (plural cilia) [source].

Related words in other languages include: cil (eyelash), and sourcil (eyebrow) in French, ceja (eyebrow, rim, edge) in Spanish, and ciglio (eyelash, eyebrow, border, edge, side) in Italian [source].

Other (eye)brow-related words include:

highbrow = intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated; a cultured or learned person or thing
middlebrow = neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between; a person or thing that is neither highbrow nor lowbrow, but in between
lowbrow = unsophisticated, not intended for an audience of intelligence, education or culture; someone or something of low education or culture.

Highbrow first appeared in print in 1875, and originally referred to the ‘science’ of phrenology, which suggested that a person of intelligence and sophistication would possess a higher brow-line than someone of lesser intelligence and sophistication [source]. Lowbrow was also conntected to phrenology and first appeared in about 1902 [source]. Middlebrow first appeared in Punch magazine in 1925 and is based highbrow and lowbrow [source].

If something is completely devoid of cultural or educational value, it could be said to be no-brow / nobrow, a word popularized by John Seabrook in his book Nobrow: the culture of marketing, the marketing of culture (2000) [source].

Incidentally, raising or furrowing your eyebrows is used to show you are asking a question in British Sign Language (BSL). Do other sign languages do this?

Do you know of any other interesting brow-related expressions?

Chocolate Peanuts

3 May 2024 By Simon

What’s the connection between chocolate and peanuts?

Well, peanuts covered with chocolate taste good, and they are both native to the Americas, but apart from that, a French word for peanut, cacahuète [ka.ka.ɥɛt / ka.ka.wɛt], was borrowed from Spanish cacahuate / cacahuete [ka.kaˈwa.t̪e / kakaˈwete] (peanut), which comes from the Classical Nahuatl cacahuatl (cocoa bean), from Proto-Nahuan *kakawatl, from Proto-Mixe-Zoque *kakawa (cacao) [source]. This is also the root of words for cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate (at least good chocolate), in many languages [source].

In Spanish, cacahuate is used in Honduras and Mexico, while cacahuete is used in Spain and El Salvador. Another word for peanut in Spanish is maní, which is used in most other Spanish-speaking countries. It was borrowed from Taíno [source].

The origins of the word chocolate are not entirely clear. The English word was borrowed from the Spanish chocolate, and it’s thought that the Spanish word came from Classical Nahuatl. Possibly from *xocolātl (to make sour) and ātl (water), or from a combination of the Yucatec Maya word chocol (hot) and the Classical Nahuatl ātl (water) [source].

Other English words that come from Classical Nahuatl include avocado, chia, chili, guacamole, haricot and tomato, as well as names such as Aztec, Guatemala and Mexico [source].

Incidentally, in the southern USA peanuts are/were known as goobers, and this word used to refer to people from Georgia and North Carolina, and to foolish, simple or amusingly silly people. Goober comes from Gullah, from the Kongo word ngubá (peanut) [source].

Ruffled Rifles

17 April 202417 April 2024 By Simon

The words rifle and ruffle sound similar, but are they related? Let’s find out.

A rifle is a firearm fired from the shoulder with a long, rifled barrel, which increases range and improves accuracy. It is short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel (rifling).

It comes from Middle English riflen (to rob, plunder, search through), from Old French rifler (to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder), from Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (to tear, rend), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (to tear) [source].

A ruffle is any gathered or curled strip of fabric added as trim or decoration; or a disturbance, agitation or commotion.

It comes from Middle English ruffelen, perhaps from Old Norse hrufla (to graze, scratch), or Middle Low German ruffelen (to wrinkle, curl). Beyond that, the etymology is not certain [source].

So it seems that rifle and ruffle are not related.

Words that do come from the same roots as rifle include rift, rip and rope in English; rive (bank [of a river]) in French, and arriba (above, over, up) in Spanish [source].

Words that do come from the same roots as ruffle include ruff in English, and hrufla (to graze, scratch) in Icelandic [source].

The English word riffle (a swift, shallow part of a stream causing broken water; a succession of small waves; a quick skim through the pages of a book; to ruffle with a rippling action, etc) is possibly an alteration of ruffle [source].

Madrugadores (Early Risers)

27 March 2024 By Simon

Are you a madrugador?

I used to be, but now I’m more of a dormilón and a trasnochador.

Madrugador [ma.ð̞ɾu.ɣ̞aˈð̞oɾ] is a Spanish (and Portuguese) word that means an early riser, early bird or morning person, and as an adjective it means rising or waking early. [source].

Madrugador comes from madrugar (to get up early), from Vulgar Latin *mātūricāre (to wake up early), from Latin matūro (to ripen, mature, hasten, rush), from mātūrus (mature, ripe, early, soon), from Proto-Italic *mātus (ripeness) from the PIE *meh₂- (to ripen, to mature) [source].

Sometimes you can pack a lot of meaning into one word in Spanish, for example, madrugaba (I/he/she/it used to get up early) and madrugadores madrugaban (early risers used to rise early).

Related words include madrugada (dawn, early hours of the morning, before dawn) and madrugón (early riser, early bird, early start).

Words with similar meanings include tempranero (early, early-rising, early riser) [source] and mañanero (early rising, morning, early riser) [source].

How would you say early riser in other languages?

By the way, there’s a novel by Jasper Fforde called Early Riser that I would recommend.

If you’re a late riser, like me, then you’re a dormilón, which should not be confused with dormilona (reclining chair, nightgown), and if you stay up late, you could be described as a trasnochador (night owl, night bird) or a noctámbulo (active at night, sleepwalker, night owl) [source].

Are there interesting equivalents of late riser or night owl in other languages?

The English words mature and maturate (to ripen, bring to ripeness or maturity) come from the same Latin roots [source].

Apparently a quien madruga, Dios le ayuda (“God helps those who rise early”) or in other words the early bird gets the worm [source].

How would you say that in other languages?

Alternatively, you could say no por mucho madrugar, amanece más temprano (“getting up earlier won’t make the sun rise sooner”) or in other words things will happen at their own time, you can’t rush art [source].

Whimperatives

15 March 2024 By Simon

When you ask someone to do something for you, but in an indirect kind of way, or in other words, you phrase an order or imperative obliquely as a question, this is apparently called a whimperative. For example, you might say “Would you mind closing the window?”, rather than the more direct “Please, close the window” or “Close the window!”. Or you might say “Why don’t you be quiet?” instead of “Be quiet” [source].

This word was coined by Jerrold Sadock, a professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, in an essay he wrote in 1970. It’s a blend of whimper and imperative. Another term for a whimperative is interrogative directive [source].

A whimper is a low intermittent sob, and to whimper means to cry or sob softly and intermittently, to cry with a low, whining, broken voice, to whine, to complain, or to say something in a whimpering manner [source].

It is probably of imitative origin, or may by related to wimmern (to whimper, moan) in German. The words wimp and wimpy possibly come from whimper, and were likely influenced by the charcter J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comics [source].

The word imperative (essential, crucial, expressing a command) comes from the Latin word imperātīvus (of or proceeding from a command, commanded), from imperō (to comand, give orders to, demand, rule, govern), from in- (in) and parō (to arrange, order, resolve) [source].

Words from the same roots include pare (to cut away the outer layer from something, especially a fruit or a vegetable) in English, parer (to adorn, bedeck, fend off) in French, parer (to stop, halt, put up, lift, stand up) in Spanish and paratoi (to prepare) in Welsh [source].

Clinking Hardware

8 March 2024 By Simon

Yesterday I discovered that a hardware store in French is a quincaillerie [kɛ̃.kaj.ʁi]. This word can also refer to hardware, ironmongery or junk, or in French, une ensemble hétéroclite de choses inutiles (a motley collection of useless things) [source]

Quincaillerie comes from quincaille (hardware, utensils) a variant of clincaille [klɛ̃.kaj], which is related to clinquant [klɛ̃.kɑ̃] (flashy, kitsch, pretentious), from clinquer [klɛ̃.ke] (to rattle, make a metalic noise), which comes from the onomatopeic word clic (click).

Similar words exist in Spanish: quincallería (hardware store) and quincalla (low-value hardware, junk). They were borrowed from French [more details].

Incidentally, the word clinquant [ˈklɪŋkənt] also exists in English, and was borrowed from French, which was possibly borrowed from Dutch klinken (to sound, ring, clink), As an adjective it means glittery, gleaming, sparkling, dressed in, or overlaid with, tinsel finery, and as a noun it means Dutch metal, tinsel or glitter [source].

Computer / IT hardware is matérial (informatique) or hardware in French [source] and computer software is logiciel [source].

Mud Glorious Mud

9 February 20249 February 2024 By Simon

If you live in a muddy place, or want to describe such a place, you could use the old word lutarious.

It means “of, pertaining to, or like, mud; living in mud”, and comes from the Latin word lutarius (of or belonging to the mud, living in mud), from lutum (mud, soil, dirt, mire, loam, clay), from Proto-Indo-European *lew- (dirt, mud) [source].

A related word is lutulent [ˈlʌtjʊlənt], which means pertaining to mud, or muddy.

Words for the same roots include:

Albanian: llucë = thin or shallow mud, muddy place
Portuguese: lodoso = muddy
Romanian: lut = clay, loam, mud, dirt, lutos = clayey
Spanish: lodo = mud, muck, mire, lodoso = muddy, boddy

Lutetia, the Gallo-Roman town founded in 52 BC that became Paris, gets it’s name from the Gaulish word *lutos (swamp), from Proto-Celtic *lutā (dirt, mud), from PIE *lew- (dirt, mud). It was known as Lutetia Parisiorum by the Romans. The Parisiorum part comes from Parīsiī, the Latin name for the Gaulish tribe who lived in the area. The name Paris comes from the same roots.

You can find more details on Radio Omniglot.

Incidentally, the French word boue [bu] (mud, dirt), also has Celtic roots: it comes from the Gaulish *bawā (mud, dirt), from Proto-Celtic *bowā (dirt, filth, excrement), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷewh₁- (excrement, dung) [source].

The Galician word bosta (dung, manure) comes from the same Celtic roots, as do the Welsh words baw (mud) and budr (dirty, filthy, vile, foul) [source].

The French word boue shouldn’t be confused with the Breton word boue [ˈbuː.e], which means buoy. It comes from Middle English boi(e) (buoy), from Middle Dutch boeye, from Old Dutch *bōcan, from Frankish *baukn (symbol, sign) from Proto-Germanic *baukną (sign, symbol), from PIE *bʰeh₂- (to glow, light, shine) [source].

By the way, do you pronounce buoy [bɔɪ] (boy) or [ˈbu.i] (boo-ee), or some other way?

Interlinguistic Conflicts

12 January 202412 January 2024 By Simon

Is it a good idea to study two or more closely related languages at the same time?

Perhaps. If you can devote more or less the same time to each one, and are able to keep them separate in your head, then there are certainly advantages to doing so. However, if you spend more time with one of them, it might interfere with the other(s), and they could end up fighting for dominance.

Many years ago, I started learning Irish and Scottish Gaelic. At first, I listened to songs in them which I tried to sing, even though I didn’t understand most of the words. Later, I started studying the languages, on my own at first, then I took some classes.

From 2005 to 2019, I spent a week or two every summer studying, speaking and singing in Irish in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland. I’ve also taken part in short courses in Scottish Gaelic songs at a college on the Isle of Skye in Scotland quite a few times between 2008 and 2022.

Until recently, I felt more fluent and confident in Irish, and it was my default Gaelic language. When I spoke Scottish Gaelic, I tended to fill in any gaps in my vocabulary and knowledge with Irish, which often works, as the two languages are closely related.

Over the past year though, I’ve been learning more Scottish Gaelic, and now feel a lot more confident with it. When I started brushing up my Irish this month, I realised that Scottish Gaelic is now the dominant form of Gaelic in my head, and Irish feels like a slightly deviant relative.

This happens with my other languages as well. Especially with closely related languages like German and Dutch (Dutch is currently winning), Swedish and Danish (Swedish is dominating at the moment), and French and Spanish (they’re fairly evenly balanced, although I feel more confident with French).

I studied (Mandarin) Chinese and Japanese at university, and became fluent in Chinese during the 5+ years I spent studying and working in Taiwan. However, I only spent one semester studying Japanese in Japan, and didn’t become as fluent in Japanese.

When I tried to read Japanese texts, I could recognise many of the kanji (Chinese characters) and knew what they meant and how to pronounce them in Mandarin, but not necessarily in Japanese. Recently I’ve been learning more Japanese and am getting better at reading it and speaking it. When I see kanji know, the Japanese pronunciation often comes first rather than the Mandarin pronunciation. I haven’t forgotten my Mandarin, but it is not as dominant as it was.

Are there interlinguistic conflicts in your head?

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