Category: Words and phrases

Big fun!

By Simon

A friend of mine who is learning Welsh likes to translate Welsh expressions literally and then use them in English. One Welsh equivalent of goodbye is hwyl fawr [hʊɨl vaur], which he translates as “big fun”, which sounds quite funny in English. Do any other languages have a phrase used when parting that has a similar meaning?

The Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru explains hwyl fawr as “a valediction, roughly equivalent to ‘All the best!’, or ‘Cheers!’. Which should not be confused with yr hwyl fawr, which is ‘the principal sail of a ship, mail-sail or main-sheet.’

hwyl can also mean:
– sail (of ship, windmill, etc), sheet, covering, pall
– journey, progress, revolution, orbit, course, route, career, rush, assault, attack
– healthy physical or mental condition, good form, one’s right senses, wits; tune (of musical instrument); temper, mood, frame of mind; nature disposition; fervour, ecstasy, gusto, zest
– merry-making, hilarity, jollity, mirth, gaiety, amusement, fun, humour

Some expressions featuring hwyl include:
– am hwyl = for fun, by way of a joke
– hwyl dda = fine state of health; good spirits, good mood
– hwyl ddrwg = physical indisposition; bad mood
– cael hwyl = to have fun, enjoy oneself, make good progress
– cael hwyl am ben (rhywun) = to make fun of (someone)
– pob hwyl = similar to hwyl fawr

Do you use literal translations of foreign expressions in your own language like this?

Why Weihnachten?

By Simon

Have you every wondered where the German word for Christmas, Weihnachten, comes from? I have, as it is so different from words for Christmas in other European languages. So I decided to investigate.

Weihnachten comes from the Middle High German wīhenahten ‎(Christmas), from a dative plural ze den wīhen nahten ‎(in the holy nights). The oldest form (1170) is a singular diu wīhe naht (the Holy Night). It came to refer to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day collectively somewhat later.

Source: Wiktionary

Another source states that Weihnachten first appeared as ze wîhen naht in a song by the minstrel Spervogel, who lived in the 12th Century: “Er ist gewaltic unde starc (…) der ze wîhen naht gebórn wárt. (…) daz ist der heilige Krist, (…) jâ lobt in allez, daz dir ist”. It is perhaps a translation of the Latin nox sancta.

More about German Christmas vocabulary and traditions:
http://marathonsprachen.com/christmas-vocabulary-wortschatz-zur-weihnachten/

That’s enough!

By Simon

The Russian word всё (vsjo) [fsʲo] is a useful one that can mean various things depending on the context: everything, still, always, all the time, nevertheless.

Here are some examples:

– Вот и всё; Это всё = that’s all
– Мне всё равно = it’s all the same to me
– Я всё равно пойду туда = I’ll go there all the same
– Всё? Да, это всё = Have you got everything? Yes, that’s everything
– Всё хорошо = Everything’s fine
– всё же = all the same
– всё ещё = still
– Мне всё мало = I just can’t get enough
– а всё-таки = all the same, nevertheless

One handy tip I got from the Russian Made Easy podcasts is that when learning a new word that has a variety of meanings, like всё, it’s hard to grasp all it’s nuances straight away. Instead your understanding of what a word means and how it’s used builds up over time the more you hear it, see it and use it.

Sources: Reverso, Russian Made Easy, The Oxford Russian Dictionary

Ditties, dictation and digits

By Simon

A ditty is a short, simple song, like the ones I write. It comes from the Old French dite (composition), from the Latin dictatum (something dictated), from dictare (to dictate), a frequentative of dicere (to say, speak), which is related to dicare (to proclaim, dedicate), from the Proto-Indo-European root *deik- (to point out).

Some English words that come from the same root include dictate, diction, and digit, which came to be related to numbers as a result of counting on fingers. Other words that developed from this root include the Latin digitus (finger), the German zeigen, the Greek δίκη [díkê] (custom, right, judgement), and quite a few more.

The word teach also comes from the *deik-, via the Old English tæcan (to show, point out, declare, demonstrate; to give instruction, train, assign, direct; warn; persuade), from the Proto-Germanic *taikijan (to show).

Source: Online Etymology Dictionary, Oxford Dictionaries and the Indo-European Lexicon.

Large vocabulary? Do you know how to use it?

By Simon

A lot of language learning approaches I’ve read and heard about focus on learning as much vocabulary as possible, and not worrying too much about grammar, at least at first. For example you might focus on learning the most commonly-used phrases and words, and on using them at every opportunity. Later on you might learn a bit of grammar.

In the Russian lesson I listened to today, the tip of the day is to focus on learning a relatively small amount of vocabulary and learning how to use it in a variety of contexts, rather than learning a lot of vocabulary, and then not being able to use it very well. Once you can use the words you know grammatically, it’s not so difficult to add more vocabulary.

In another lesson in this course the presenter suggests that learning grammar from books and tables isn’t very effective, and that it’s best to learn it from lots of examples and exercises which focus on real colloquial language.

I’m finding the course very useful and like this approach. It introduces various aspects of Russian grammar gradually and gives you plenty of opportunities to practise using them.

What are your thoughts on this?

Stuckies, pleeps and doos

By Simon

I came across some interesting Scots words in a TED talk today which I hadn’t heard before – stuckies, pleeps and doos.

What do you think they mean?

Clue: they’re types of bird.

In the talk the presenter, a native speaker of Scots, explains how he was told from his first day at school that many of the words he was using were wrong, and that it was the same story for many other children. They have to learn ‘proper’ English words. He talks about how Scots has been marginalised and replaced by a version of English spoken with a Scottish accent known as Attic or Scottish English. He explains how words in Scots have much richer associations in his brain than their English equivalents.

Here’s the talk:

How much can you understand?

Answers
A stuckie is a starling, a pleep is an oyster catcher, and a doo is a dove.

French and potatoes

By Simon

I came across an interesting phrase in Scottish Gaelic today: Ith do bhuntàta beag mus dig na Frangaich!, which means “eat your small potatoes before the French come!” and it is apparently said to children picking at their food to encourage them to eat up [source].

Are there similar phrases in other languages, perhaps used in different contexts?

What did your parents say to you to get you to finish your food?

Or if you have kids, what do you say to them, if they need encouragment?

Squibs and squabs

By Simon

When an event is not very successful, you could say that it went off like a damp squib, or even a damp squid, as a friend mistakenly said last night.

A squib is obviously something that does not work properly when it’s wet, and I had an idea that it was some kind of explosive.

According to Reverso, a squib is:

1. a firework
2. a firework that does not explode because of a fault; dud
3. a short witty attack; lampoon
4. an electric device for firing a rocket engine
5. an insignificant person (obsolete)
6. a coward (Aus/NZ slang)

And a damp squib is “something intended but failing to impress”.

Etymology: probably imitative of a quick light explosion.

An unrelated, but similar-sounding word is squab, which is:

1. a young unfledged bird, esp. a pigeon
2. a short fat person
3. a well-stuffed bolster or cushion; a sofa
4. (of birds) recently hatched and still unfledged
5. short and fat

Etymology: probably of Germanic origin; compare Swedish dialect sqvabb (flabby skin), sqvabba (fat woman), German Quabbe (soft mass), Norwegian kvabb (mud)

Source: http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/squab

Squib, squab and squid are all good words for Scrabble.

Are there equivalents of damp squibs in other languages?

Wysinnwyg

By Simon

The other day I listened to a programme on BBC Radio 4 with an unusual title – Wysinnwyg. When I first saw the title of immediately thought it was a Welsh word, although not one I’d come across before, and I tried to work out what it might mean. I couldn’t find it in any Welsh dictionary, so assumed it was a made-up word. After listening to the programme I realised it was a variation on wysiwyg (what you see is what you get), which also looks Welsh, and means “what you see is not necessarily what you get”.

There aren’t very many Welsh words that start with w, in fact, and many of them are loanwords from English. Here are some examples:

– waldio [ˈʊaldɪɔ] = to beat, to thrash
– wb [ʊb] / wbwb [ˈʊbʊb] = wi! oh! alas!
– wedi[ˈʊɛdɪ] = after
– wedyn [ˈʊɛdɨn] = afterwards
– weithiau [ˈʊɛɪθɪaɨ] = sometimes
– wele [ˈʊɛlɛ] = behold!
– wfft [ʊft] = fie! for shame!
– wfftian [ˈʊftɪan] = to flout
– wit-wat [ˈʊɪtʊat] = fickle
– wtio [ˈʊtɪɔ] = to boo
– wrth [ʊrθ] = by, with, to, compared with, because
– wy [ʊɨ] = egg
– wyneb [ˈʊɨnɛb] = face, surface
– wyth [ʊɨθ] = eight
– wythnos [ˈʊɨθnɔs] = week (eight-night)

Do you ever see acronyms or made-up words and think they are from a particular language? Or see words in one language and think they’re really from another language?

Whenever I see words with w’s and y’s and double l’s I think of Welsh. So Amarillo looks like a Welsh place name to me.