Category: Words and phrases

Filling Up Your Years

By Simon

Hourglass image

One way to say that you have a birthday in Swedish is to use the verb fylla (to fill up, load, pack). For example:

– Jag fyller i april = My birthday is in April*
– Du fyller år i morgen = Tomorrow is your birthday
– Han fyller nämligen år i dag = It’s his birthday today
– Hon fyllde 40 år i går = She was 40 years old yesterday

Birthday in Swedish is födelsedag [ˈføːdɛlsɛˌdɑːɡ /ˈfœlsɛˌdɑː(ɡ)], and Happy Birthday is Grattis på födelsedagen. Födelsedag comes from födelse (birth) and dag (day). Födelse comes from föda (to feed, give birth), which is related to the English words food and feed; and -else (a suffix that makes verbs into nouns).

*Could you also say Min födelsedag är i april (My birthday is in April)?

When asking how old someone is in Swedish, could you ask many years they’ve filled?

Is it polite to ask someone’s age in Sweden?

Are there interesting ways to refer to birthdays in other languages?

Sources: bab.la, Wiktionary

Cake on Cake and Gilded Lilies

By Simon

A gilded lily

When you have to much of a good thing, or are repeating things superfluously, you’re putting cake on cake – tårta på tårta or kaka på kaka, at least in Swedish [source].

For example:

– Det är tårta på tårta = That would be too much [source]
– Det är lite tårta på tårta att tala om ”ISBN-nummer” = It is a bit superfluous to talk about “ISBN number”

The English phrase “too much of a good thing” first appeared in writing in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It in 1600 [source].

A similar idiom is “to gild the lily“, meaning to embellish or improve something unnecessarily. Or to add superfluous attributes to something. It is apparently a misquote from Shakespeare’s play King John (1595):

“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

Other related idioms include “to go overboard” and “to over-egg the pudding” [source].

In Chinese an equivalent idiom is 畫蛇添足 [画蛇添足] (huàshétiānzú) = “to draw a snake and add legs” [source].

Are there other idioms in English or other languages with a similar meaning?

Photo from: http://www.janneyscollection.com/product/arthur-court-gilded-lily-side-table/

Catfish and Sockpuppets

By Simon

Photo of a catfish

A catfish is “any of an order (Siluriformes) of chiefly freshwater stout-bodied scaleless bony fishes having long tactile barbels” or “a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes” [source].

According to Wikipedia, a catfish is “someone pretending to be someone they are not on the internet”. The term apparently became popular after the 2010 film Catfish, the story of a man who falls in love with a girl online who is using a false identity. However it was used for decades before then.

I only discovered the second meaning today when reading something a friend posted online. He talked about being catfished on a date, and I had to look up the term.

A few years ago I was catfished myself by someone on a dating website who claimed to be a Russian girl living in France, but turned out to be an online scammer looking for money. I didn’t send them any money, and got to practise my French for a few months, so it wasn’t an entirely negative experience.

A similar term is sockpuppet, which is “an online identity used for purposes of deception”, and was originally “a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person”. It was first used in 1993, and can now refer to someone who praises, defends or supports a person or organization, manipulates public opinion, or circumvents a suspension or ban from a website [source].

Photo from Flickr

Zhoozhing up

By Simon

The word zhoozh [ʒʊʃ/ʒʊʒ] was one of the words of the week on the episode of the Talk The Talk podcast I listened to yesterday.

There are various ways to write it: zhoozh, zhoosh, zhuzh, or even tszuj. It means “To tweak, finesse or improve (something); to make more appealing or exciting”, and is often used with up, e.g. to zhoozh up.

Zhoozh was possibly first used in the 1970s in Polari, a cant or slang used by Romani people, and also gay people, in the UK, especially in theatres.

It may come from the Angloromani yuser (to clean) and yusher (to clear), from yus-, yuz-, yuzh- (clean) and yush- (clear), from the Romani žuž-, už- (clean”).

It is also used to mean to blend ingredients using a food mixer or blender. For example, throw the ingredients in the blender and give them a quick zhoozh.

In South African slang it means stylish, hot, or cool.

Source: Wiktionary

See also:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/zhuzh-zhoosh-queer-eye-origin-kressley
http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/placeholder.html
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zhoozh

Are there any similar words in other languages?

Blundering about, eyes closed

By Simon

Wink emoji

I learnt today that the Swedish word blunda means to shut one’s eyes, to keep one’s eyes shut, to refuse to see something; to pretend not to know about, or to ignore. It comes from the Old Norse word blunda (to shut the eyes, to doze) [source].

Related words include blund (good sleep, wink), blund for (to wink at, turn a blind eye to), and Jon/John Blund, a character from folklore who brings good sleep and dreams to children, known as the sandman in English.

In Icelandic blunda means to doze.

Wink is also linked to sleep in English – you might take forty winks, or not sleep a wink, which might make you blunder about.

The English word blunder comes from the same root, via the Middle English blunder, blonder (disturbance, strife), and blonden, blanden (to mix; mix up); and blunden (to stagger; stumble), from the Old Norse blunda [source].

Blunder is also a Swedish word meaning blooper, gaffe, trip, bloomer and blunder.

Cows, beef and shepherds

By Simon

Cows among the heather in Cregneash, Isle of Man

Yesterday I learnt the Russian word for beef, говядина [ɡɐˈvʲædʲɪnə], and the promotely forgot it. So I thought I’d investigate its etymology to help me remember it.

говядина comes from говядо [ɡɐˈvʲadə] and old word for cattle. This comes from the Proto-Slavic *govędo (head of cattle, bull, ox), from the Proto-Indo-European *gʷew-n̥d-, from *gʷṓws (cattle) [source].

The usual Russian word for cow is корова [source], which comes from the Proto-Slavic *kőrva (cow), from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (horn) [source].

*gʷṓws is also the root of:

  • gak = boar (Albanian)
  • govs = cattle, cow (Latvian)
  • говядо = beef (Ukrainian)
  • говедо = cattle (Bulgarian, Macedonian & Serbian)
  • govedo = cattle (Croatian & Slovenian)
  • hovado = brute (Czech & Slovak)
  • gowjedo = cow (Lower Sorbian)
  • *kūz = cow (Proto-Germanic)
  • Kuh = cow (German)
  • koe = cow (Dutch)
  • ku = cow (Norwegian)
  • ko = cow (Swedish, Danish, North Frisian)
  • coo, kye = cow (Scots)
  • βοῦς = cow (Ancient Greek)
  • bōs = cow, bull, ox (Latin)
  • bou = ox (Catalan)
  • bue = ox, beef (Italian)
  • bife = steak (Portuguese)
  • bou= ox, idiot (Romanian)
  • buey= ox. steer (Spanish)
  • bœuf = cow, ox, beef, jam session (French)
  • *bāus = cow (Proto-Celtic)
  • *bōws = ox (Proto-Celtic)
  • bu, buw = cow, bullock, head of cattle (Middle Welsh)
  • buwch = cow (Welsh)
  • bugh = cow (Cornish)
  • bu, buoc’h = cow (Breton)
  • bó = cow (Irish)
  • booa = cow (Manx)
  • bò = cow (Scottish Gaelic)

The English words beef and bovine come ultimately from the same root. Beef comes from the Middle English beef, bef, beof, from the Anglo-Norman beof, from the Old French buef, boef (ox). from Latin bōs (“ox”)

The Proto-Indo-European word *gʷowkólos, from *gʷṓws (cow) & *kʷel- (to revolve, move around, sojourn) gives us the following words in the Celtic languages [Source].

  • *boukolyos = herdsman (Proto-Celtic)
  • *bʉgöl = herdsman (Proto-Brythonic
  • bugail = shepherd, pastor (Welsh)
  • bugel = child, shepherd (Cornish)
  • bugel = child (Breton)
  • búachaill = cowherd (Old Irish)
  • buachaill = boy, herdsman, servant, boyfriend (Irish)
  • bochilley = shepherd, herdsman (Manx)
  • buachaill, buachaille = cowherd, herdsman, shepherd, youth (Scottish Gaelic)

Oină

By Simon

People playing oină

I came across the oină in one of the Romanian lessons I did today. It’s translated as ‘oina’ without any explanation of what it means. As the lesson was about sport and oină is something you play, I guessed that it’s some kind of sport.

According to Wikpedia, oină [ˈoj.nə] is a traditional Romanian sport similar to baseball and lapta (a similar Russian sport).

The word oină was originally hoina, and is comes from the Cuman word oyn (game), which is cognate with the Turkish oyun). The game was first mention in writing in 1364. Cuman is an extinct Turkish language that was spoken in Hungary until the 18th century.

Going stag

By Simon

A stag

I came across the expression “to go stag” the other day in an article and was puzzled by it. I couldn’t quite work out what it meant from the context, so looked it up.

According to Merriam-Webster it is an expression used in the USA that means: “to go to a party or other social event by oneself.”

The American Heritage Dictionary defines stag as: “A person who attends a social gathering unaccompanied by a partner, especially a man who is unaccompanied by a woman”, and also as: “a social gathering for men only.”

Merriam-Webster has a similar definition for stag: “social gathering of men only one who attends a dance or party without a companion.”

In the UK and Ireland a stag can be “a social event for males held in honor of a groom on the eve of his wedding, attended by male friends of the groom” [source]. Stag can also refer to the groom. A stag is also known as a stag do, stag party, stag weekend, bachelor party (USA & Canada), buck’s party (Australia). Are there other names for such an event?

Such events date back at least to the 5th century B.C. The ancient Spartans apparently celebrated a groom’s last night as a single man by having a dinner and making toasts to him [source].

Stag also means an adult male deer. Itcomes from the Middle English steg, stagge (stag), from the Old English stagga, stacga (stag) and the Old Norse steggi, steggr (a male animal), from the Proto-Germanic *staggijô, *staggijaz (male, male deer, porcupine), probably from the Proto-Indo-European *stegʰ-, *stengʰ- (to sting; rod, blade; sharp, stiff) [source].

The photo comes from Flickr

Dividing the day

By Simon

Illustration of clock

When does the morning start for you? How about the afternoon, evening or night? Does it vary from day to day, perhaps depending on the sun, or do you stick to clock time?

Dictionary definitions of these words are as follows:

morning – the time from sunrise to noon; the time from midnight to noon [source].

afternoon – the part of day between noon and sunset [source].

evening – the latter part and close of the day and early part of the night; the period from sunset or the evening meal to bedtime [source].

night – the time from dusk to dawn when no sunlight is visible [source].

For me mornings start when the sun rises. That can vary a lot here from just before 5am in the summer to 8:30am in the winter. I often wake up when the sun comes up, but don’t usually get up until later.

Afternoon starts just after midday (12pm) – that doesn’t vary, though my lunchtime may be between 12pm and 3pm. Here the sun sets between 4pm in the winter and nearly 10pm in summer. So my afternoons would be very long in the summer if they lasted until sunset. Instead I think of them as going until I have my evening meal, which is usually between 6pm and 7pm.

Evenings for me start after my evening meal and last until bedtime. Nights overlap somewhat, usually from when it gets dark until sunrise.

Not all languages distinguish between afternoon and evening – there is one word for both. In Spanish and Portuguese it’s tarde, in Catalan it’s tarda, in Greek it’s απόγευμα, in Irish it’s tráthnóna and in Scottish Gaelic it’s feasgar.

If you’re a native speaker of one of these languges, do you think of the time between noon and night as a one period?

Are there other ways of dividing the day in other languages?

Quarter of eight and half nine

By Simon

Clock image

If someone told the time was quarter of eight, what would you understand by that?

As far as I can discover, quarter of eight is how some people in the USA refer to 7:45. Other ways to say the same thing include quarter to eight, quarter til(l) eight and seven forty-five. Does anybody in the English-speaking world say quarter before eight, or something else?

8:30 can be eight thirty, half past eight or half eight. I think the last one is only used in the UK. Does anybody say something different?

When learning other Germanic languages, such as Dutch and German, English speakers can get confused when hearing that the time is half eight – halb acht (German), half acht (Dutch) – we expect it to be 8:30, but it is in fact 7:30.

08:30 is half negen (Dutch), halb neun (German), halv ni (Danish / Norwegian), halv nio (Swedish), hálf níu (Icelandic), or half nine.

Is it as confusing for speakers of other Germanic languages learning English?

I’ve put together a page of ways to tell the time in English – comments and additions are very welcome.