A few tips about tips

TIPS box - not genuine

I heard some discussion on Radio Cymru this about the origin of the word tip(s). They said that in 18th century England there were boxes in pubs with the letters T.I.P.S. on them, which stood for “To Insure Prompt Service”. Gratuities were put into the boxes and became known as tips.

According the Snopes.com, a fact checking website, this is folk etymology, i.e. wrong. No such boxes existed, and the first appearance in writing of the word tip, meaning gratuity, dates back to the early 18th century, and the word tip, meaning to give a small sum of money intelligence on horse races or the latest silly joke dates back to 1610, and was used in thieves cant (slang).

The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that the word tip, meaning to knock down or overturn, is of uncertain origin, and possibly comes from Scandinavian languages – in Swedish tippa means to tip or dump.

The word tip, as in the end or point of something, comes from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch tip (utmost point, extremity, tip).

The story about tip being an acronym for “To Insure Prompt Service”, “To Insure Promptitude” or “To Insure Promptness” comes from Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England by Frederick W. Hackwood, which was published in 1909.

There is more fact checking of popular sayings on Snopes.com.

Irish Tongue-Twisters

Last week I learnt some new tongue-twisters (rabhlóga) in Irish. To those not familiar with Irish, almost an sentence in Irish might appear to be a bit of a tongue-twister, but these ones are particularly tricky.

Seacht sicín ina seasamh sa sneachta lá seaca.
Seven chickens standing in the snow on a frosty day.

Fear feargach ag faire na farraige fuaire.
An angry man watching the cold sea.

Cheannaigh cailín cliste ceanúil císte.
A clever, affectionate girl bought a cake.

Cearc ag piocadh piobair de phláta Pheadair.
A chicken is picking peppers from Peter’s plate.

Bhí bean bheag bhocht breoite bruite leis an bhfuacht.
The poor little sick women was scaled with the cold.

Rinne Máire gáire gan náire ag an fhaire i nDoire anuraidh.
Mary laughed shamelessly at the look-out in Derry last year.

I have made recordings of my attempts to say them. If you can do better, please contact me.

You can see more of these on: http://www.omniglot.com/language/tonguetwisters/irish.htm

A Hooley of Ukeists

Ukulele Hooley

I’m having a great time at the Ukulele Hooley this weekend, so I thought I’d look into some ukulele-related words.

There are various possible words for people who play the ukulele:

– Ukulele player
– Uker
– Ukist
– Ukeist
– Ukulist
– Ukulelist
– Ukuleleist
– Ukulelian
– Uke-phreak
– Ukester
– Ukestrator
– Ukeleler

There are also words for things ukulele-related: ucal (based on duke/ducal), or ukel (based on yokel).

Sources: forum.ukuleleunderground.com and MetaFilter

Then there are some words, which I just made up, for what ukulele players do, i.e. play the ukulele: uke, ukelize, ukify. Can you come up with any others?

Me playing one of my songs in the open mic at the 2016 Ukulele Hooley

I sang one my songs, Spollagyn son tey / Chips for tea, in the open mic session last might (see photo above). I usually sing it unaccompanied, and messed it up a bit at the start, but it went okay after that. I was also singing it from memory, which is fine when I’m just singing, but when I’m play the ukulele at the same time, it’s a lot more challenging, and definitely needs more practice.

So what would you call a group of ukulele players?

A strum, a hooley, or something else?

Suggestions welcome.

Other collective words for musician can be found at: https://thesession.org/discussions/27892

If you’re in the Dublin area today, why not come along to a free concert in the People’s Park in Dún Laoghaire this afternoon from 12pm.

Eating sideways

An interesting Japanese word I came across today in an article on ‘untranslatable’ words is 横飯 (yokomeshi) which is used to describe the stress of speaking a foreign language.

It comes from 横 (yoko – horizontal) and 飯 (meshi – boiled rice, a meal, food), and could be translated as ‘a meal eaten sideways’. This refers to the fact that Japanese is often written vertically, while most other languages are written horizontally.

Are there words of expressions in other languages that have a similar meaning?

Singluarity

I learnt an interesting new French word today – célibataire. When I first saw it I guessed that it meant celibate, but when I checked in a dictionary I found that while it does mean celibate, it is more commonly used to mean single. So un célibataire is a single man or bachelor, and une célibataire is a single woman or spinster. A confirmed bachelor un célibataire endurci and une mère célibataire is a single / unmarried mother – the male equivalent is un père célibataire.

Célibataire comes from célibat (celibacy), from the Latin caelebs (unmarried, single), from the Proto-Indo-European *kaiwelo- ‎(alone) and *libʰs– ‎(living) [source].

Single comes from the Middle English sengle, from the Old French sengle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive of simplex (simple or literally “onefold”*, from sim- ‎(the same) and plicare ‎(to fold) [source].

*Duplex = twofold, double

When is a blog not a blog?

When I meet people who are familiar with my website, some of them say how much they like my blog. When I ask them what they like about it, they mention things that are on my website, rather than on this blog, so I soon realise that they’re using the word blog to refer to my website, and possibly this blog, although not all of them are aware of the blog’s existence.

To me the distinction between my website and my blog(s) is clear. They may be on the same server, but they look different and have different functions. I’ve noticed that on some other websites though there isn’t such a clear distinction between blogs and other pages, especially on ones that have grown from blogs. Maybe that’s why people get confused.

Sometimes people tell me about mistakes on other sites which are linked to on Omniglot, thinking that I have something to do with them and can make changes on them. I understand why this happens as they might not realise that they’re on a different site.

None of these things are particularly important, but it’s interesting, to me at least, to notice them.

Is there a distinction between the words for website and blog in other languages?

Phrase finder

Screenshot of the phrase finder

There is a now a new way to view the phrases on Omniglot: a Phrase finder.

This page enables you to see phrases in any combination of two languages. This is something I’ve been planning to set up for years, and now it’s finally ready.

So if your native language isn’t English and you want to see phrases in your mother tongue and another language, you can.

If you want to see the similarities and differences between two closely related languages, you can.

If you want to see two completely different languages side by side, you can.

The phrases are stored in server-side includes and displayed on the page using PHP, which was written by David Stephens of LinguaShop.

The phrases are currently available in 233 languages. If you can provide phrases in other languages, or additional phrases for the existing languages, or recordings, please contact me.

Suspending disbelief

One of the things we talked about in the French conversation group this week was suspending disbelief, which is accepter les invraisemblances in French. That is “accepting the improbabilities”. Another way to say this in French is suspension d’incrédulité.

The word invraisemblance also means unlikeliness or inverisimilitude. Related words include invraisemblable (unlikely, incredible, implausible, improbable) and invraisemblablement (implausible, unlikely).

Its antonym is vraisemblance (plausibility, verisimilitude, likelihood). It comes from vrai (true, real), plus sembler (to seem).

Expressions incorporating vraisemblance include:

– selon toute vraisemblance = in all likelihood, apparently
– essai de vraisemblance = plausibility test
– contrôle de vraisemblance = absurdity check

Sources: Reverso, Linguee and Wikipedia

Apparently the English phrase suspension of disbelief was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions

See: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/suspension-of-disbelief.html

Are there interesting ways to express this idea in other languages?

Are you a phenom?

I came across an interesting word in an article about hyperpolyglots I read today (it’s an old article, but I only just found it) – phenoms, which appears in the following sentence:

TIME spoke to Erard about phenoms who can speak more languages than they have fingers, whether anyone can do it and where the upper limits of human potential lie.

According to Dictionary.com, phenom [fɪˈnɒm] is an abbreviation of phenomenon and refers especially to a young prodigy. The definitions are “a person or thing of outstanding abilities or qualities” (informal), or “A phenomenally skilled or impressive person; a performing wonder, esp in sports”.

Apparently it comes from US baseball slang, and was first recorded in 1890.

Merriam-Webster defines a phenom as “a person who is very good at doing something (such as a sport)” or “a person of phenomenal ability or promise”.

Have you come across this word before?

Les chuchoteuses

Lindsay et les chuchoteuses

On Rue Staint-Paul in Vieux Montréal there’s a statue of three women having a gossip. It’s known as Les chuchoteuses or ‘The whisperers’. It’s also known as the “fat ladies talking statue”. It’s by Rose-Aimée Bélanger, a sculptor from Ontario, and was installed as part of a 2006 initiative to highlight some of Old Montreal’s forgotten spaces.

The word chuchoteuses [ʃyʃɔtø:z] comes from chuchoter [ʃy.ʃɔ.te] (to whisper; to rustle), which is of imitative origin. Related words include chuchoterie (whispering), chuchotis (faint whispering), chuchotement (a whisper / murmur, rustling).

I like the sound of this word, and of the words for whisper in other languages:

– Italian / Portuguese / Spanish: sussurro, from Latin susurrus ‎(a humming, whispering)
– German: Flüstern
– Dutch: fluistering
– Welsh: sibrwd

What about in other languages?

The photo is one I took while exploring Montréal with Linsday Dow of Linsday Does Languages, who features in it.

Sources: Wiktionary and Reverso