Category: Words and phrases

Noogies

By Simon

A interesting word that comes up sometimes in American books I read is noogie [ˈnʊɡi], which is used in the context of one person giving someone else a noogie. The people involved are usually kids, and it sounds like a somewhat unpleasant experience, though until I looked it up, I didn’t know exactly what the word meant. It isn’t used in the UK, as far as I know.

According to Merriam-Webster, a noogie is “the act of rubbing your knuckles on a person’s head to cause annoyance or slight pain”. The origins of the word are unknown, and it first appeared in print in 1972.

Are noogies used outside the USA? Are there other words for this practice in other countries?

Muddling through

By Simon

to muddle through
– “to succeed in some undertaking in spite of lack of organization” [source]
– “to succeed in doing something despite having no clear plan, method, or suitable equipment” [source]
– “to cope more or less satisfactorily despite lack of expertise, planning, or equipment.”
synonyms: to cope, manage, get by/along, scrape by/along, make do, make the best of a bad job [source]

When learning a language, or other things, are you someone who can set goals, make plans and stick to them?

I do sometimes set myself language learning goals, and often make plans, and even manage to stick to them for a while. However my goals tend to be fuzzy, my plans half-baked, and my sticking-to-it abilities somewhat sporadic. Generally I tend to learn bits and pieces of languages as the fancy takes me, and try a variety of courses and methods, at least until I get bored or find alternatives, and just muddle through as best I can.

When people ask me for advice about learning languages, as they often do, I have plenty of suggestions, but the only one I stick to is to do a lot of listening. So I don’t really practise what I preach. Is my advice less valuable as a result? Perhaps it is.

Do you advise people to try learning techniques you don’t use or rarely use yourself?

Does the concept of muddling through exist in other languages?

Skeuomorphs

By Simon

Some skeuomorphs

I came across an interesting word and concept today – the skeuomorph [ˈskjuːəmɔrf], from the Greek σκεῦος (skéuos – container or tool), and μορφή (morphḗ – shape), and defined as “a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues from structures that were necessary in the original” [source].

This term was apparently coined by H. Colley March in 1889 after he noticed that some ancient artifacts had a retro look. For example pottery bowls had patterns like woven baskets [source].

Modern skeuomorphs include many digital icons and interface elements on computers and other electronic devices which resemble their non-digital analogues, such as the waste basket / trash can, clocks, shopping trolleys / carts, and so on.

Borborygmus

By Simon

I came across a wonderful word today – borborygmus [bɔrbəˈrɪɡməs] (plural borborygmi) – which refers to a rumble or gurgle in the stomach. It comes from the 16th-century French word borborygme, via Latin from the Ancient Greek βορβορυγμός (borborygmós), which was probably onomatopoetical [source, via The Week].

Are there interesting words for this phenomenon in other languages?

Hollallu

By Simon

I came across a wonderful word in Welsh today – hollallu [hɔɬˈaɬɨ] – which means omnipotence or almightiness. It is a portmanteau of (h)oll (all, the whole, everything, everyone) and gallu (to be able (to), have power (to), can, be able to accomplish (a thing)), and there are a couple of variant forms: ollallu and hollalluogrwydd.

Related words include:
– hollalluedd / ollalluedd = omnipotence
– hollalluog / ollalluog = omnipotent, almighty, all-powerful; the Almighty. 

Source: Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru / A Dictionary of the Welsh Language

So I have come up with a Welsh version of Omniglot based on these words – (h)olliaithadur, which combines (h)oll with iaith (language) and the suffix adur (denoting a tool or thing) as in geiriadur (dictionary or “words tool/thing”).

We need more ning!

By Simon

Last night at choir one of the songs we were singing ended with the line “in the mor-ning”, with the mor and ning of morning clearly separated and on different notes. One of the tenors made a joke that we needed more ning in the morning, which appealed to me, and I wondered what ning might be and why we’d need more of it. I also wondered if ning is a word in any other language, and what it might mean.

So we need more ning in the morning and evening when lightning is adorning the darkening sky, and warnings of yawning are lessening.

For more nings see: http://www.rhymer.com/RhymingDictionaryLast/morning.html

There are a number of nings in Mandarin Chinese:

– 拧 [擰] (níng) = to twist; wring; pinch; tweak
– 凝 (níng) = to congeal
– 宁 [寧] (níng) = peaceful; tranquil
– 狞 [獰] (níng) = ferocious (of facial expression), as in (níngxiào) = sardonic smile
– 拧 [擰] (nǐng) = to screw; differ; disagree
– 宁 [寧] (nìng) = rather; would rather; surname
– 佞 (nìng) = to flatter; toady
– 拧 [擰] (nìng) = pigheaded
– 泞 [濘] (nìng) = muddy

What about in other languages?

Found poetry

By Simon


I went to a poetry recital last night featuring Nia Davies, a Welsh/English poet who lives in Wales, and Hu Dong, a Chinese poet who lives in England. It was part of the North Wales International Poetry Festival. Nia’s poems were all in English, and Hu Dong’s were in Sichuanese, with English and Welsh translations.

Nia read a series of interesting poems based on really long words in various languages, or at least on their English definitions. She was inspired to write the first of these after discovering the Turkish word Çekoslavakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdansınız? (Are you one we couldn’t Czechoslavakianize?) while learning Turkish. She then looked for similarly long words in other languages, and wrote poems about some of them.

While listening to the long word-based poems I was trying to think up with a suitably long word to describe such activity. I came up with sesquipedalogology, which combines sesquipedalian ([of a word] polysyllabic; long; characterized by long words; long-winded), and logology (originally the science of word studies, but now the field of recreational linguistics, particularly word games).

Another interesting word that came up was metrophobia, the fear of poetry, which was the theme of one of the poems.

The English translations of long words in other languages can be quite poetic – a kind of found poetry. In fact you can take definitions from any monolingual dictionary and find poetry in them. Here are few from my English dicitonary:

elevenses, pl. n. Brit. informal
a light snack
usually tea or coffee
taken in mid-morning

elflock, n.
a lock of hair
fancifully regarded as having been
tangled by the elves

If you have a monolingual dictionary to hand, why not open it at random and see if you can find any interesting words and definitions.

Sandwiches and Portsmouths

By Simon

The sandwich is named after the 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, who is reputed to have invented it as a convenient way to eat while playing cards. He didn’t come up with the idea of putting meat or filling between two slices of bread, but he certainly popularised it and gave it his title.

According to the QI* elves on the No Such Thing as a Fish podcast, the Earl would have preferred to be the Earl of Portsmouth, but someone else got that title first. If he had got his wish, we might be eating portsmouths rather than sandwiches.

Do you know of any other interesting stories attached to foodstuffs, items of clothing or other things named after famous people?

*QI (Quite Interesting) is a quiz show on BBC TV.

Flierefluiter

By Simon

The other day I learnt an interesting word in Dutch – flierefluiter – which a Dutch friend described as being a “butterfly type of person”. That is, someone who rarely sticks to or finishes anything.

According to the vanDale dictionary flierefluiter is a nietsnut (layabout or someone fit for nothing).

According to Dictionarist a flierefluiter is a ‘loafer, idler, dawdler, lazy person; low slip-on shoe’.

Are there interesting words for this type of person in other languages?

Da mad math

By Simon

In Welsh and Cornish the usual word for good is da [daː], while in the other Celtic languages words for good are: Breton – mat [maːt˺], Irish – maith [mˠa(ɪ)(h)], Manx – mie [maɪ], and Scottish Gaelic – math [ma]. I’ve wondered for a while whether there were cognates in Welsh and Cornish for these words.

Last week I found that there are: mad in Welsh and mas in Cornish. The Welsh word, which means good, seemly, lucky, appears in the phrase: a wnêl mad, mad a ddyly (one good turn deserves another), but isn’t otherwise used, as far as I can discover. The Cornish word doesn’t appear in the Cornish dictionaries I’ve checked so I think it is probably not used any more.

These words all come from the Proto-Celtic *matis (measure), possibly from the Indo-European mē (measure, consider) [source], which is also the root of the Irish word meas (judgement, opinion, respect) [source], and possibly of the Welsh meddwl (to think), and the English mete (measure).