Category: Words and phrases

Untranslatable?

By Simon

Recently I was sent a link to an infographic containing some apparently untranslatable words for love, and this got me wondering if there really is such a thing as an ‘untranslatable’ word or concept.

The words featured in lists of ‘untranslatable’ words are often given poetic-sounding meanings, and other more ordinary and common meanings they have are ignored.

In some languages a single word might represent a meaning that translates as a phrase in other languages, and there are some culture concepts which can be hard to translate – that is the words themselves can be translated but the meanings they represent might be specific to a particular culture.

The Dutch word gezelligheid (“the warmth of being with loved ones”), is an example from the infographic, which has an equivalent in German: geborgenheit, so it isn’t completely untranslatable.

Are there any words in languages you know that you believe to be untranslatable?

Pip pip!

By Simon

In English, at least the English I speak, the seeds you find in fruit have different names depending on the kind of fruit. Those found in citrus fruit, grapes, apples and pears I would call pips, while those found in peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries and apricots and similar kinds of fruit I would call stones. The seeds found in soft fruit like raspberries, blackberries and strawberries I would call seeds.

What names do you use?

Do you have a counting rhyme for the pips/seeds/stones?

The one I know is “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” – whichever one you end on is what you’re going to be. Do such rhymes exist in other languages?

Apparently peaches, plums and similar fruit are known as drupe or stone fruit, which have fleshy part consisting of skin (exocarp) and flesh (mesocarp) surrounding a hard shell (a.k.a. pit, stone, pyrene) which contains a seed or kernel. Raspberries and blackberries are made up of multiple small drupes, or drupelets [source].

Custard sandwiches and pancakes

By Simon

Sniglet - any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should

The Welsh word for sandwich is brechdan [ˈbrɛxdan], which comes from the Irish word brechtán (butter, fat), according to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.

However according to MacBain’s Dictionary, is related to the Scottish Gaelic word for pancake, breacag, which is related to breachdan (custard), which comes from the Middle Irish breachtán (a roll), which is related to the Welsh words brithog (mottled, variegated, multi-coloured, speckled, fine) and brith (marked with different colours, variegated, coloured, chequered, mottled, pied, spotted, speckled, brindled, grey), which are related to the word word breac (speckled) in Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

According to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, brechdan is a sandwich, and also a slice of bread and butter; sandwich; cake or shortbread.

There are also a number of interesting types of sandwich in Welsh:

– brechdan fawd / gorddi = slice of bread on which butter is spread with the thumb
– brechdan gaerog / ddwbl / linsi / fetal / deiliwr = an oatcake on a slice of buttered white bread or between two slices of white bread
– brechdan grasu = toast, toasted sandwich
– brechdan i aros pryd = slice of bread and butter to carry on with until the next meal, snack
– brechdan doddion = slice of bread spread with dripping
– brechdan driagl / driog = slice of bread spread with treacle

For details of the origins of the word sandwich, see Sandwiches and Portsmouths

Retronym

By Simon

I learnt an interesting word today – retronym – a new name for something that already existings that distinguishes the original from a more recent version. For example, ebooks are becoming increasingly popular, so there’s a need for a new word for non-ebooks. On the program I heard the word retronym, Word of Mouth, they suggested pbooks, paper books or printed books for the non-electronic version. Do you have any other suggestions?

They also discussed phones – since the default phone for most people these days is a mobile/cell phone, there’s a need to a different word for a non-mobile phone. Home phone or landline were suggested. Do you have other words?

For more information about retronyms, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retronyms

A’a

By Simon

One Hawaiian word that is used in English is a’a, which is defined as “a kind of rough-surface volcanic rock” [source].

However in Hawaiian it is written ʻaʻā, pronounced [ʔəˈʔaː] and means:

1. to burn, blaze, glow; fire; staring (eyes)
2. lava; stony, abounding with ʻaʻā lava
3. Sirius (the star)
4. young stage of damselfish

The word aʻa [əˈʔa] means:

1. small root, rootlet, vein, artery, nerve, tendon, muscle
2. to send greetings or love; joyous hospitality; joy at greeting a loved one

There is also ʻaʻa [ʔəˈʔa], which means:

1. to brave, dare, challenge, defy, check, venture; to accept a challenge; to volunteer; to act wickedly or presumptuously; bold, venturesome, valiant, intrepid
2. belt, girdle, waist; to gird, to tie on
3. bag, pocket, caul, envelope for a foetus, scrip; fiber from coconut husk; clothlike sheath at base of coconut frond; cloth; chaff, hull
4. a wind
5. booby bird

And ʻā.ʻā [ʔaː.ʔaː], which means:

1. dumbness, inability to speak intelligibly, a dumb person; dumb, silent, still; to stutter and stammer, as a dumb person
2. dwarf, small person; dwarfish, small
3. demented, panic-stricken
4. booby bird.
5. male ʻōʻō bird

Source: Hawaiian Dictionaries

This shows the importance of the ʻokina (“cutting”) and kahakō (“long mark”) in Hawaiian. The former represents a glottal stop [ʔ] and is a letter in Hawaiian, and the latter indicates a long vowel.

Jenga

By Simon

In the Bangor Community Choir last night we started learning a new song entitled Jenga by Juliet Russell. We were told that the song uses made-up words that don’t mean anything in particular, and it has no connection to the game of Jenga.

One of my friends thought the word jenga might mean something like ‘to build’ in Swahili, so I thought I’d investigate.

Jenga does indeed mean to construct or build in Swahili [source], and the as the inventor of the game, Leslie Scott, grew up in East Africa speaking English and Swahili, it is likely that the name of the game comes from that Swahili word.

Related words include:

– jengo = building
– mjenzi = builder
– ujenzi = architecture; construction, installation

Source: Online Swahili – English Dictionary

Sniglets

By Simon

Sniglet - any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should

I learned an interesting new word from the radio yesterday – sniglet – which is defined as “any word that doesn’t appear in the dictionary, but should”.

It was apparently popularized by the comedian/actor Rich Hall while he was working on Not Necessarily the News, an HBO comedy series from the 1980s, who has also published a number of collections of sniglets [source].

Examples include:

  • Aquadextrous: possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap / faucet with the toes
  • Blamestorming: sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.
  • Egosurf: to search for yourself on Google or another search engine
  • Ohnosecond: that very short moment in time during which you realize that you have pressed the wrong key and deleted hours, days, or weeks of work.
  • Percussive maintenance: the fine art of whacking the crap of of an electronic device to get it to work again.
  • Treeware: documents made out of paper, as opposed to electronic documents.

Here are some collections of sniglets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniglet
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Sniglet-term.htm
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Sniglet-Words-that-should-be-in-the-dictionary-but-arent

Awaken the Appetite

By Simon

A ragout is a highly seasoned meat and vegetable stew, and comes from the French ragoût, which appears to be a general word for stew.

Ragoût comes from the Middle French ragoûter (to awaken the appetite), which comes from the Old French re- (back), à (to) and goût (taste), from the Latin gustum (taste), from gustare (to taste, take a little of) from the Proto-Indo-Etymology *gus-tu-, a form of the root *geus- (to taste, choose), which is the root of the English word choose, and the German word kosten (to taste of) [source].

Sgimilearachd

By Simon

Sgimilearachd definition

Sgimilearachd [sgʲimɪlɛrəxg], noun = habit of visiting other people at mealtime; intrusion (from: Am Faclair Beag)

Alternative definition: Obtrusiveness, impudence, intrusion; Mean habit of popping in upon people at meals, living and doing nothing about, gentlemen’s kitchens. (from: Am Faclair Dwelly)

This is one of the interesting Scottish Gaelic words I learnt from this blog post. Others include:

– Allabhuadhach = someone who is victorious, but in disgrace.
– Claidean = an absurd hammering at anything.
– Nigead = those little sobs or sighs you make before or after weeping.
– Atamaich = to fondle an unreasonable person.

Do similar words exist in any other languages?

Adumbrations

By Simon

I came across a new word yesterday – adumbrations – which I had to look up in a dictionary as I couldn’t work out its meaning from the context:

Framed in the archway formed by the far end of the vaulted roof were the fantastical forms of five great gasometers, the supporting superstructures of which seemed in their adumbrations to be tangled impossibly with each other, like the hoops of an illusionist’s conjuring trick.

From The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, by Douglas Adams.

According to the Reverso dictionary, adumbration means

1. delineation, draft, indication, outline, rough, silhouette, sketch, suggestion

2. augury, forecast, foreshadowing, foretelling, omen, portent, prediction, prefiguration, prefigurement, presage, prognostication, prophecy, sign

3. bedimming, cloud, darkening, darkness, eclipse, eclipsing, obfuscation, obscuring, overshadowing, shadow

A related word is adumbrate, which means “to outline; give a faint indication of; to foreshadow; to overshadow; obscure.

It comes from the Latin word adumbratus (represented only in outline), from adumbrare (to cast a shadow on), from umbra (shadow) – obvious really!