Squally Showers

26 March 2025 By Simon

One of the words that came up in my Spanish lessons recently was chubascos, which it translated as (rain) showers. I wondered where it comes from, and thought I’d investigate.

In Spanish, chubasco [tʃuˈβ̞as.ko] means downpour, squall, heavy shower, setback or a rain shower, particularly one associated with heavy wind. In nautical usage, it refers to a dark cloud which suddenly appears in the horizon, potentially foretelling rough sailing conditions [source].

Related expressions include:

chubascos dispersos = scattered showers
chubasquero = a waterproof raincoat
aguantar el chubasco = to weather the storm

Chubasco comes from Portuguese chuvasco (downpour, shower), or from Galician chuvasco (downpour, shower), which both come from Old Galician-Portuguese chuvia (rain), from Latin pluvia (rain, a shower), from pluit (to rain, be raining), from Proto-Italic *plowō, from Proto-Indo-European *plew- (to flow, float, wash) [source].

The word chubasco [tʃuːˈbɑːskəʊ] also exists in English and refers to a violent squall with thunder and lightning, encountered during the rainy season along the Pacific coast of Central America and South America. It was borrowed from Spanish [source].

Words from the same roots include chuva (rain) in Portuguese, choiva (rain) in Galician, lluvia (rain, rainfall, stream, barrage, shower, spray) in Spanish, and pioggia (rain, shower) in Italian pluie (rain) in French, and pluvious (involving or related to rain, rainy) in English [source].

By the way, someone who loves rain, and/or finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days, or an organism that thrives in a rainy environment is a pluviophile and is pluviophilious, and another name for a rain gauge is a pluvioscope [source].

Other rain-related words in Spanish include:

llover = to rain
llovedizo = rain, leaky
llovizna = drizzle
lloviznar = to drizzle, mizzle
lluvioso = rainy
pluvioso = rainy, pluvious
pluvial = rain, pluvial (of, pertaining to, or produced by rain)

Incidentally, the English word rain comes from Middle English reyn (rain, shower), from Old English reġn (rain), from Proto-West Germanic *regn (rain), from Proto-Germanic *regną (rain), possibly from pre-Germanic *Hréǵ-no-, from Proto-Indo-European *Hreǵ- (to flow). It’s cognate with Regen (rain) in German, regn (rain) in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish, rõki (drizzling rain) in Lithuanian, and regar (irrigate, water, scatter, hose, ruin) in Spanish [source].

Breeze-Stoppers

19 March 2025 By Simon

One of the words that came up in my Spanish lessons today was limpiaparabrisas, which means windscreen / windshield wiper, and struck me as a relatively rare multi-word compound in Spanish.

Unlike the Germanic languages*, Spanish doesn’t seem to have a lot of words like limpiaparabrisas made up of several words joined together, at least that’s my impression. It’s made up of limpia, from limpiar (to clean, wash, wipe), and parabrisas (windscreen, windshield), which is made up of para, from parar (to stop), and brisas (breezes) [source]. A related word is lavaparabrisas (screen wash, windshield washing fluid) [source].

*For example, in German there are words such as: Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung (Regulation on the delegation of authority concerning land conveyance permissions), and Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (Beef labeling supervision duties delegation law), which are of course used in everyday conversation. If not, they should be [source].

Spanish does have plenty of words made up of a stem plus prefixes and/or suffixes, or compounds of two words. For example, the word mesa means table, desk, bureau or committee. Related words with affixes include mesero (waiter), mesilla (bedside table, stall), and mesita (small table). Related compound words include sobremesa (tablecloth, desktop) and tornamesa (turntable, record player) [source].

Other two-word compounds in Spanish include abrebotellas (bottle opener), cortarcésped (lawn mower), cortafuego (firewall), lavaplatos (dishwasher), portaaviones (aircraft carrier), quitamanchas (stain remover), sacacorchos (corkscrew) and salvavidas (life jacket) [source].

In fact, limpiaparabrisas and lavaparabrisas are really two-word compounds, but look like three-words compounds. So, maybe they’re not that unusual.

Do you know of any interesting multi-word compounds in Spanish or other languages?

Strong Strings

12 March 202512 March 2025 By Simon

Are the words string, strong, strength, strait, stretch and strict related? Let’s find out.

String comes from Middle English streng (rope, cord, line, thread, string, ribbon, muscle, tendon, ligament, filament), from Old English strenġ (string, rope, cord), from Proto-West Germanic *strangi (string), from Proto-Germanic *strangiz (string), from Proto-Indo-European *strengʰ- (to twist; rope, cord), possibly from *sterh₃- (to spread, extend, stretch out) [source].

English words from the same roots include constrict, constrain, restrict, strong, strength, strain, strait, stress, strict, stricture and stringent.

Words from the same roots in other languages include stringere (to clasp, grasp, squeeze) in Italian, étreindre (to hug, clutch, grip) in French, streng (strict, severe, rigorous, unbending, cruel) in Dutch, sträng (strict, stern, severe) in Swedish, strangs (brave, brisk, fresh) in Latvian, rankka (burdensome, hard, intense, harsh, tough) in Finnish [source].

So, the odd one out in the list above is stretch, which comes from Middle English strecchen (to stretch out, spread, extend), from Old English streċċan (to stretch, extend, spread out, prostrate), from Proto-West Germanic *strakkjan (to stretch, make straight), from *strak (stretched, straight), from Proto-Germanic *strakaz (stretched, straight) from Proto-Indo-European *(s)treg- (stiff, rigid).

Words from the same roots include stark in English, stark (strong) in German, strak (taut, tight) in Dutch, strække (to stretch) in Danish, and shtriqem (to stretch) in Albanian [source].

Here’s a tune from the music session I went to last night called The Bishop of Bangor’s Jig. It’s played on string instruments (fiddle, guitar and banjo), so is sort connected to the theme of this post.

You can find the dots: https://www.folktunefinder.com/tunes/94828

Swallowing Camels

27 February 20252 March 2025 By Simon

This week my Danish lessons have been focusing on idioms, and an interesting idiom that came up is sluge en kamel, which literally means ‘to swallow a camel’, but what other meanings does it have? Let’s find out.

According to Wiktionary, this idioms means ‘to accept a change or amendment (to a proposal)’ or ‘to agree to something one would not have if one had fully understood the implications from the beginning’.

According to Den Danske Ordbog, it means ‘acceptere eller gå med til noget der egentlig strider imod ens idealer og ønsker’ (to accept or agree to something that actually goes against one’s ideals and desires), and another version of the idiom is sluge kamelen (to eat the camel).

According to SpeakAndLearn.dk, it means ‘to admit that you are wrong, even though you have clearly stated that you were absolutely sure, that you were right’.

So it seems it has a variety of meanings. Are there similar idioms involving camels in other languages?

In English, you might liken doing something unpleasant or undesirable to swallowing a frog – Mark Twain is sometimes quoted as having said or written “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” There’s apparently no evidence that he did in fact say or write this. The idea of eating a frog in the morning possibly comes from Nicolas Chamfort, a French writer, who wrote in the 1790s:

… il faudrait avaler un crapaud tous les matins, pour ne trouver plus rien de dégoûtant le reste de la journée, … (it would be necessary to swallow a toad every morning so as not to find anything else disgusting during the rest of the day)

[source]

Other interesting Danish idioms involving animals include:

klap lige hesten (‘just pat the horse’) = shut up, relax, take it easy
det blæser en halv pelikan (‘it’s blowing half a pelican’) = it’s very windy and the weather is awful
Jeg har ikke en rød reje (‘I don’t have a red shrimp’) = I’m skint, I have no money
ingen ko på isen (‘no cow on the ice’) = everything is okay – whatever the problem is, it’s not a big deal so don’t worry about it
så er den ged barberet (‘then the goat is shaved’) = the work has been done, or the problem has been resolved

Source: https://ling-app.com/da/funny-danish-phrases/

The House of Jeroboam

21 February 202521 February 2025 By Simon

The other day I was looking for how to say confusion in Welsh, and one of the translations I found was (‘roedd popeth) fel tŷ Jeroboam, which means ‘(everything was) in confusion’, or literally ‘(everything was) like the house of Jeroboam’. This got me wondering who was Jeroboam, and way was his house in confusion?

According to Wikipedia, Jeraboam I, a.k.a. Jeraboam som of Nebat, was the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel between c. 931/22-910/901 BC. During his 22-year reign, there was continual war between him and Rehoboam (רְחַבְעָם), the first king of Judah. So perhaps that’s why Jeraboam is associated with confusion.

The name Jeroboam comes from Hebrew יָרָבְעָם‎ (Yārŏḇʿām), which comes from רִיב‎ ‎ (rīḇ) and עַם‎‎ (ʿam). Possible meanings of the name include “the people contend”, “he pleads the people’s cause”, “his people are many” or “he increases the people”.

The word Jeroboam can also refer to a 3 litre bottle of champagne or Burgundy wine (a.k.a. double magnum), or a 4.5 litre bottle of Bordeaux wine (a.k.a. Rehoboam) [source].

Other names for wine / champagne bottle sizes include: Piccolo (0.1875 litres), Chopine (0.25 litres), Demi (0.5 litres), Magnum (1.5 litres), Imperial / Methuselah (6 litres), Salmanazar (9 litres), Balthazar / Belshazzar (12 litres), Nebuchadnezzar (15 litres), and Melchizedek / Midas (30 litres) [source].

Other ways to refer to confusion in Welsh include: dryswch, penbleth = confusion (of mind); anhrefn, tryblith, llanast(r), cybolfa, annibendod = confusion (disorder).

Other Welsh phrases that mean ‘(everything was) in confusion’, like (‘roedd popeth) fel tŷ Jeroboam, include:

(‘roedd popeth) blith draphlith = (everything was) topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, mixed (up), in confusion, in a muddle
(‘roedd popeth) yn siop siafins = ‘(everything was) like a shop of (wood-)shavings’
(‘roedd popeth) yn draed moch = (everything was) was a mess, confusion, rack and ruin, disaster (‘like pigs feet’)
(‘roedd popeth) yn siang-di-fang = (everything was) higgledy-piggledy, topsy-turvy, extremely untidy, in confusion, mess, disorder.
(‘roedd popeth) ar gychwyn = ‘(everything was) about to start’
(‘roedd popeth) ar hyd y lle = ‘(everything was) all over the place’
(‘roedd popeth) yn garlibwns = ‘(everything was) a heap, an untidy mass, confusion, curd’
(‘roedd popeth) yn glamwri = ‘(everything was) grief, trouble, clamour’
(‘roedd popeth) yn gawdel = ‘(everything was) a caudle, hotchpotch, medley’
(‘roedd popeth) yn gabidwl/gabwdwl = ‘(everything was) chaos, confusion, disorder’

Sources: Geiriadur yr Academi and Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.

Coming across the phrase (‘roedd popeth) fel tŷ Jeroboam also inspired me to write this song in Welsh called ‘Tŷ Jeroboam’. Here are the words – I’m still working on the tune:

Mae popeth yn garlibwns
yn garlibwns, yn garlibwns
Mae popeth yn garlibwns
yn tŷ Jeroboam

Mae popeth yn blith draphlith
yn blith draphlith, yn blith draphlith
Mae popeth yn blith draphlith
yn siop hen siafins

Mae popeth yn siang-di-fang
yn siang-di-fang, yn siang-di-fang
Mae popeth yn siang-di-fang
ar hyd y lle

Mae popeth yn gabwdwl
yn gabwdwl, yn gabwdwl
Mae popeth yn gabwdwl
yn tŷ Jeroboam

Are there interesting ways to talk about confusion in other languages?

By the way, this blog features on a list of the 100 Best Language Learning Blogs and Websites in 2025 compiled by FeedSpot.

Little Dishes

9 February 20259 February 2025 By Simon

Is the word plateau related to plate, platypus, plaza, pizza, place, flat and fold? Or is one of these words an odd one out? Let’s investigate.

Plateau [ˈplætəʊ / plæˈtoʊ] means:

A largely level expanse of land at a high elevation; tableland.
A comparatively stable level after a period of increase.
A notable level of attainment or achievement.
To reach a stable level after a period of increase; to level off.

It comes from French plateau (flat area, tray, plateau, stage, (TV) set, chain-ring), from plat (flat, flat area of ground, flat thing, a dish or course) [source] and the diminutive ending -eau, which can also be added to words like éléphant and zèbre to make éléphanteau (a young [male] elephant, calf) and zébreau (young zebra) [source].

Plat comes from Middle French plat (flat), from Old French plat (flat, a footbridge), from Vulgar Latin *plattus (flattened), from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús – broad, flat), from Proto-Hellenic *plətús, from Proto-Indo-European *pléth₂us (flat, broad), from *pleth₂- (to spread, to extend, flat) [source].

Plate, platypus, plaza, place, flat and fold all probably come from the same roots, as do pit(t)a (bread), piazza, flan, field, plantain, and the name Plato [source].

The odd one out is pizza, which was borrowed from Neapolitan pizza, which comes from Byzantine Greek πίτα (píta – cake, pie), the origins of which are uncertain. Words from the same roots include пита (pita – round loaf, cake, pie, honeycomb) in Bulgarian, pită (bread, sustenance) in Romanian, pite (pie, tart) in Hungarian, and pide (traditional Turkish flatbread, Turkish pizza) in Turkish [source].

Hydraulic Plumbers

30 January 2025 By Simon

A lot of the words in Italian are similar to words in Spanish, French or other Romance languages I know, but quite often I come across a word that doesn’t seem familiar at all. For example, idraulico (plumber) – a bit different from plombier in French, plomero in Spanish.

Idraulico [iˈdraw.li.ko] means plumber, plumbing or hydraulic in Italian. It comes from Latin hydraulicus, from Ancient Greek ὑδραυλικός (hudraulikós – of a water organ), from ὕδραυλις (húdraulis – water organ), from ὕδωρ (húdōr – water) and‎ αὐλός (aulós – pipe) [source].

Words from the same roots include hydraulic, hydrate and hydrofoil in English, hydraulique (hydraulic) in French, and υδραυλικός (ydravlikós – plumber, hydraulic engineer, hydraulic) in Greek, hydraulik (plumber) in Polish [source].

The French word plombier (plumber, plumbing), the Spanish word plomero (plumber, plumbing), and the English words plumber and plumbing, all come from Latin plumbārius (plumber, of or pertaining to lead), from plumbum (lead [metal], pipe of lead), possibly from Ancient Greek μόλυβδος (mólubdos – lead), or from Proto-Celtic *ɸloudom (lead) [source].

Related words from the same roots include piombo (lead, grey, bullet), piombino ([lead] seal, sinker [weight], plummet) in Italian, plomb (lead [metal], fuse, sinker [fishing weight]) in French, Plombe (seal, lead seal [dental] filling) in German, and plwm (lead, leaden) in Welsh [source].

The Spanish word plomero is used for plumber in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Uruguay. Other Spanish words for plumber include: fontanero in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, gásfiter in Chile, gasfitero in Ecuador and Peru, and tubero in the Philippines [source].

Are there interesting words for plumber in other languages?

Kinder Kinder

22 January 202522 January 2025 By Simon

There’s a joke / meme that goes something like No matter how kind you are … German children are Kinder.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

This is a bilingual pun – in German Kinder means children, while in English kinder means nicer, more gentle, generous, affectionate, etc. These two words look alike, but are they related? Let’s find out.

The German word Kind (child, kid, offspring) comes from Middle-High German kint (child), from Old High German kind (child, descendants), from Proto-West-Germanic *kind (child), from Proto-Germanic *kindą, *kinþą (child), from Pre-Germanic *ǵénh₁tom, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (to produce, beget, give birth) [source].

Kind in English means such things as having a benevolent, courteous, friendly, generous, gentle, liberal, sympathetic or warm-hearted nature or disposition; affectionate, favourable, mild, gentle or forgiving. It can also mean a type, category (What kind of nonsense is this?); goods or services used as payment (They paid me in kind), or a makeshift or otherwise atypical specimen (The box served as a kind of table).

Kind as in benevolent comes from Middle English kinde, kunde, kende (kind, type, sort), while kind as in type comes from Middle English cunde (kind, nature, sort) / kynde (one’s inherent nature; character, natural disposition), and both come from Old English cynd (sort, kind, type, gender, generation, race) / ġecynd (nature, kind, class), from Proto-West-Germanic *kundi / *gakundiz, from Proto-Germanic *kinþiz (kind, race), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (birth, production), from *ǵenh₁- (to produce, beget, give birth) [source].

So, the German Kind and the English kind do ultimately come from the same roots. Are German Kinder kinder though, or are they the Wurst, and somewhat gross?

Other words produced, beget and given birth to by the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵenh₁- include: kind (child), koning (king, monarch) and kunne (gender, sex) in Dutch, cognate, engine(er), gender, gene, general, genesis, genetic, genial, genius, gentle, kin, king, nature, oxygen and progeny in English, König (king) in German, nascere (to be born, bud, sprout) in Italian, gentis (tribe, genus, family, kin) in Lithuanian, geni (to be born, birth) in Welsh [source].

Incidentally, the English word child is not related to the German word Kind. It comes from Middle English child (baby, infant, toddler, child, offspring), from Old English ċild (child, baby), from Proto-West Germanic *kilþ, *kelþ, from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz (womb; fetus), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵelt- (womb), or from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (to ball up, amass). It is related to kuld (brood, litter) in Danish, and kelta (lap) in Icelandic though, and possibly kalt (cold, chilly, calm) and kühl (cool, calm, restrained) in German [source].

Travelling Hopefully

15 January 2025 By Simon

They say that it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive, or something similar, but who said this first? Where does this idea come from?

According to Phrase Finder, this phrase is attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote in an essay entitled El Dorado in Virginibus Puerisque, published in 1881:

“Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”

A similar sentiment apparently appears in the Taoist proverb “The journey is the reward”, by Laozi (老子), the semi-legendary 6th century BC Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism. However, I haven’t found the reference yet. He did write “the journey of a thousand li* commenced with a single step” [千里之行，始於足下] [source].

A li [里], is a traditional Chinese unit of distance made up of 1,500 chi [尺]. The distances represented by the measures has varied over time. The li now has a standardized length of 500 metres (1,640″), and traditionally it was about the length of a single village [source], while the chi is ⅓ of a metre, or 33⅓ cm [source].

On my recent travels by train in the UK, there have been many delays and cancellations. Each time I’ve arrived at my destination, but usually an hour or two late. Fortunately, I’ve received full or partial refunds from the train companies in most cases. When I travel, I always travel hopefully, hoping that I’ll arrive on time, or at least arrive the same day. I make the most of the journeys, reading, listing to audiobooks, studying languages, and watching the scenery go by. Sometimes I even get into conversations with other travellers, though I’m not good at starting them. Maybe I should see my journeys as epic quests.

Are you a hopeful traveller?

Pasting Meals

7 January 20257 January 2025 By Simon

The Italian words pasto and pasta look and sound similar, but are they related? Let’s find out.

Pasto [ˈpa.sto] means meal, and comes from Latin pāstus (fed, nourished, consumed, pastured, satiated, satisfied), from pāscor (to feed oneself, to eat, graze, feed, nourish, pasture, browse, from Proto-Italiac *pāskōr (I am fed, driven to pasture) from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (to protect, ward, shepherd) [source].

Words from the same roots include feed, fodder, food, pasture and repast in English, paître (to graze), repas (meal), and possibly pain (bread) in French, pascere (to graze) in Italian, and pasto (pasture, lawn, grass) in Spanish [source].

Pasta [ˈpa.sta] in Italian means dough, pastry, pasta, cake or paste, and can also refer to the nature or mo(u)ld of a person, e.g. sone tutt’e due delle stessa pasta = they’re both cast from the same mo(u)ld [source].

Here are some examples of how the word pasta is used in Italian:

pasta in brodo = noodle soup
pasta fatta in casa = home-made pasta
pasta frolla = shortcrust pastry
pasta sfoglia = puff pastry
pasta all’uovo = egg pasta
pasta dentifricia = toothpaste
pasta di mandorle = almond paste

It comes from Late Latin pasta (paste, pasta), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá – barley porridge), from παστός (pastós – sprinkled with salt), from πάσσω (pássō – to sprinkle), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷeh₁t- (to shake).

Words from the same roots include παστός (pastós – salted, preserved with salt, corned) in Greek, quash (to defeat decisively, suppress, void) in English, quassare (to shake, agitate) in Italian, casser (to break) in French, and , cascar (to crack, split) in Spanish [source].

In British English, pasta refers to Italian pasta, that is, dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating [source]. Types of Italian pasta include calamarata, cannelloni, farfalle, fettuccine, fusilli, gnocchi, lasagne, linguine, macaroni, orecchie d’asini, orecchiette, penne, radiatori, spaghetti, tagliatelle, tortellini, vesuvio, and vermicelli [source].

One of those types of pasta I made up. Do you know which one?

In American English, the word noodle(s) apparently can refer both to Italian pasta, and Asia noodles, while in the UK, noodle(s) normally only refers to Asia noodles, such as Japanese ramen. What about in other varieties of English?

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Adventures in the world of words and language

Category: Words and phrases