Are you sturggled?

You may think I have misspelled the title of this post, and in a way I have, but I did so deliberately. The other day when typing struggle I accidentally typed sturggle. I thought that it looked like an interesting word, and wondered what it might mean.

Apparently I’m not the first person to come up with this word – according to the Urban Dictionary, sturggle means:

To be afflicted with a debilitating hangover to the point where you cannot speak.

I’ve never been sturggled in this sense.

Do you have any other suggestions as to what sturggle might mean?

Have you accidentally come up with any other new words?

Pauchle

I came across an interesting Scots word yesterday – pauchle [ˈp(j)ɑxl] – which I needed to look up, although from the context you can get an idea of its meaning:

They’re hoping that they can pauchle the party rule book in order to insist that Corbyn must gain the support of at least 51 of the party’s Westminster and EU parliamentary contingent in order to stand again in a leadership contest. [from Wee Ginger Dug]

According to my Scots dictionary it means:

Pauchle (1) noun
1. a bundle, small load (of goods); the personal belongings of someone in service and living away from home, (usually) kept in a trunk
2. a small bundle or parcel of something; a quantity of something; a small quantity of something taken by an employee from his employer, either furtively or as a perquisite*
3. a packet (of letters)
4. a swindle, a piece

Pauchle (1) verb
1. to be guilty of a minor dishonesty, cheat; rig (an election)
2. to steal, embezzle, pocket
3. to shuffle (playing cards)

or

Pauchle (2) verb
1. to move feebly but persistently, shuffle, hobble, struggle along (pauchle alang, awa, on)
2. to struggle, strive, expend effort and energy
3. to work ineffectually, bungle, potter

If you are in a pauchle, you are in a chaotic or disorganized state, or behind with your work.

It is probably of onomatopoeic origin.

See also: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/pauchle_n1_v1
and http://caledonianmercury.com/2010/04/23/useful-scots-word-pauchle/006074

So it looks like quite a useful word. Are there other words for a little something you take from your employer?

*A perquisite is “a benefit which one enjoys or is entitled to on account of one’s job or position” [source]

Heavy Plant Crossing

Heavy Plant Crossing Sign

If you saw this sign, what kind of plant(s) would you expect to be crossing?

In this context, plant refers to “a large, heavy machine or vehicle used in industry, for building roads, etc.” It can also mean “machines used in industry” or “a factory in which a particular product is made or power is produced” [source]

Apparently the first recorded use of plant for a factory dates from 1789 – this meaning developed from the idea of the factory being ‘planted’ [source]. Perhaps the meaning was extended to the machines used in factories, and to other large industrial machines.

Is plant used to refer to large machines only in the UK?

Budge up!

Notice in local café in Bangor

In the café where I had lunch today I saw a sign saying “Blue Sky tables are for sharing. Budge up and say Hi!” (see photo).

I thought budge up sounding like a very British kind of thing to say. Is it used in other English-speaking countries? If not, how would you ask someone to move up?

Budge comes from the French bouger (to move), from the Vulgar Latin *bullicāre, frequentative of Latin bullīre (to bubble, boil), from bulla (bubble; bubble-shaped object), from Gaulish, from Proto-Indo-European *beu ‎(swelling) [source].

It’s a gas!

In Hiberno-English people might describe something fun and enjoyable as a gas. For example, “That’s gas”, “A gas laugh”, “Come on, it’ll be gas”, “He’s a gas character”, “Your man is gas” [source].

Last week an Irish friend told me that this expression comes from laughing gas (nitrous oxide), which was used at parties to induce hilarity and euphoria in the guests.

According to The Grammarphobia Blog, the earliest citation in the OED for gas meaning fun was in James Joyce’s 1914 collection of stories, Dubliners, in which one character says he’s brought along a slingshot “to have some gas with the birds.”

According to Historically Speaking, Humphrey Davy noticed that nitrous oxide produced a state of induced euphoria which led to laughter followed by a state of stupor and, finally, a dreamy and sedated state. He introduced it to the British upper class in 1799 and it became used as a recreational drug at “laughing parties”. The term “it’s a gas” soon came to refer to what happened at such parties.

Magrangs

Does anyone know if there is a word for words that have the same length and constituent letters, but are not anagrams, such as bee and ebb, and aloof and offal.

I received an email from Peter Hewkin today who suggests the word magrang (a magrang of anagram) for such words.

Do you have other suggestions?

Can you think of other examples?

Savouring sapient and savvy saphiophiles

An interesting new word I came across recently is sapiophile [seɪpɪofaɪl/sapiofaɪl]. When I first saw it I wasn’t sure what it meant, but as soon as I looked it up it made sense. It means “someone who is (sexually) attracted to intelligence / intelligent people” [source]. It comes from the Latin sapiō and the Ancient Greek φιλέω (phileō – I love) [source].

Sapiō is a form of sapiēns, as in homo sapiens, which means wise, discreet; wise man, philosopher, man of taste. Related words include sapienter (wisely, sensibly), and sapientia (wisdom, discernment; philosophy; knowledge).

The English word sapient (wise), comes from the Old French sapient, from the Latin sapientem (nominative sapiēns), the present participle of sapere (to taste, have taste, be wise), from the Proto-Indo-European root *sep- (to taste, perceive) [source]. Alternatively it comes from the Proto-Indo-European *sh₁p-i- ‎(to notice), from the Proto-Indo-European *seh₁p- ‎(to try, to research). This is also the root of words meaning to know in quite a few languages, including: savoir (French), sapere (Italian, Sardinian), saber (Portuguese, Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Asturian, Occitan), and of the English words to savour and savvy (shrewd, well-informed and perceptive) [source].

A number of women on dating sites say they are a saphiophile – that’s where I stumbled on the word. A lot of women on such sites are looking for someone who is genuine, which can mean various things, including “belonging to, or proceeding from the original stock; native; hence, not counterfeit, spurious, false, or adulterated; authentic; real; natural; true; pure” [source]. Which of these meanings is meant I’m not sure.

Genuine comes from the Latin genuinus ‎(innate, native, natural), from gignere, from the Old Latin genere ‎(to beget, produce), from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁os ‎(race), from *ǵenh₁- ‎(to produce, beget) [source].

So maybe I should mention on Match and POF that I’m seeking a savvy, single, multilingual saphiophile – try saying that a few times quickly, it’s a bit of a tongue twister.

On Match you can search for people by the language(s) they speak. So, for example, you could search for someone who speaks French, Welsh, Kazakh, Swahili, Nepalese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Esperanto, or quite a few other languages. The list of languages is a bit random and looks like users were able to enter languages at some stage, so it includes Bable (Asturian), Euskera (Basque), Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Gallero (?), Indian (?), Iranian (?), Mallorquin, Valenciano and Visayan (Cebuano).

There are currently 651 Welsh-speaking women on Match, for example, 65 Esperanto speakers, and 42 Taiwanese speakers. However, in your profile you can only choose three languages – on Plenty of Fish (POF) you can only choose one second language, and you can only search one language at a time. These sites are obviously not set up with polyglots in mind.

Suburban bans

In French the word banlieue [bɑ̃.ljø] can refer to:

1. Circonscription territoriale qui s’étendait à une lieue hors de la ville et dans laquelle un juge pouvait exercer sa juridiction.
(Territorial division that stretched a mile out of town and in which a judge could exercise jurisdiction).

2. Territoire et ensemble des localités qui environnent une grande ville.
(Territory and all the communities that surround a large city).

This word comes from the Medieval Latin banleuca (the space within a mile of a city to which extended the ban in feudal society). The word ban in this context refers to the jurisdiction of an overlord in which he could call vassals for war. It comes from Old French, from the Frankish *ban.

Sources: le Trésor de la langue française informatisé and Wiktionnaire

The word banlieue is also used in English to refer to “The outskirts of a city, especially in France, inhabited chiefly by poor people living in tenement-style housing” [source].

The English word banns, as in banns of marriage, probably comes from the same root as the French ban, but the English word ban (to forbid, prohibit), comes from the Middle English bannen, from the Old English bannan ‎(to summon, command, proclaim, call out), from the Proto-Germanic *bannaną ‎(curse, forbid), from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- ‎(to say) [source].

The elusive illusive

Sometimes you think you know a word, but when you check it, you discover that you’ve mixed it up with a similar-sounding word. That’s what happened to me this week with the words elusive and illusive. Without looking them up, do you know what they mean?

When you’re searching for something but have trouble finding it, that thing is elusive. According to the Collins English Dictionary, it means:

1. difficult to catch (an elusive thief)
2. preferring or living in solitude and anonymity
3. difficult to remember (an elusive thought)

So something that is elusive might difficult to find, describe, remember, or achieve.

Illusive, on the other hand, means illusory or unreal.

So something that is illusive could also be elusive.

Elusive comes from the Latin elus-, the past participle stem of eludere (to elude, frustrate) plus the -ive ending. Elude comes from ex- (out, away) and ludere (to play) [source].

Illusive comes from illusion + -ive. Illusion comes from the Old French illusion (a mocking, deceit, deception), from the Latin illusionem (a mocking, jesting, jeering; irony), from the past participle stem of illudere (mock at), from in- (at, upon) and ludere (to play) [source].

Rowing your boat

The French equivalent of to go for a row (in a boat), is faire un tour en barque or faire de la barque, and to row (a boat) is ramer, which also means to stake, although if you’re rowing as a sport then it’s faire de l’aviron.

A barque is a small boat or rowing boat, a barque de pêche is a fishing boat, a patron de barque is a skipper. Aviron is rowing or an oar, which is also main d’aviron or pagaie, and avironner means to paddle, which is also pagayer.

To ram in French is percuter, and a battering ram is a bélier, which is also a ram (male sheep).

A row (noise) in French is un vacarme, and a row (noisy argument) une dispute and to row is se disputer.

So to have a row [raʊ] while going for a row [rəʊ] would be “se disputer en faire un tour en barque”, I think.

Source: Reverso