Category: Words and phrases

Jacob’s join

By Simon

Yesterday I discovered a term for a potluck meal (one at which each guest contributes some food or drink) which I hadn’t heard before – Jacob’s join. My mum used it, and told me that it’s commonly used in Lancashire, where she lives. I don’t remember hearing this when I was growing up there, but then we didn’t go to many such meals.

According to World Wide Words, this term is used in and around Lancashire (in the north west of England), however nobody knows where it comes from. It might have some connection to Jacob in the bible.

Other ways to refer to a Jacob’s join apparently include potluck dinner, spread, Jacob’s supper, faith supper, covered dish supper, dish party, bring and share, dutch, pitch-in, bring-a-plate, dish-to-pass, fuddle [source]. I haven’t heard of many of these before. Have you?

Does this tradition exist in your country/area?

If so, what do you call it?

Blue eyes and black butter

By Simon

I discovered today that the French equivalent of a black eye is un œil au beurre noir (a black butter eye). It is also known as un œil poché au beurre noir (an eye poached in black butter) or un cocard (a rosette or lesion).

According to L’Internaute.com, the expressions containing beurre noir date from the 19th century, and the butter in question was butter used when poaching eggs which coloured the egg white. The egg yolk was compared to the eye, and the darkened white to the discolouring of a black eye.

In German the equivalent is ein blaues Auge (a blue eye), and in Spanish it’s un ojo morado (a purple/bruised eye).

Are there other ways to refer to this in other languages?

By the way, I don’t remember way the conversation came round to black eyes last night, but none of us have them.

Closing out

By Simon

In the Czech lessons I’ve been working my way through I’ve noticed that the Czech host says (in English) at the end of each lesson “To close out this lesson, we would like to practise what you have just learnt.”. I would say finish rather than close out, and thought close out was a non-native usage. However recently I heard American friends using the same expression, so it seems that it is used in American English.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to close out is defined as:

– exclude; preclude

So it does exist as an expression, but the meaning doesn’t quite fit with finishing a lesson.

Do you use or have you heard this expression?

Carrying coals to Newcastle

By Simon

An idiomatic way to say a task is pointless is to say it’s like carrying coals to Newcastle – Newcastle, in the north east of England, used to be a major coal mining area.

In French the equivalent is porter de l’eau à la rivière (to carry water to the river).

In German they say Eulen nach Athen bringen/tragen (to take/bring owls to Athens).

In Welsh there are quite a few equivalent expressions:

– cario glo i Fflint = to carry coal to Flint (a former coal mining area)
– cario dŵr dros afon = to carry water across a river
– bwrw heli yn y môr = to throw salt in the sea
– iro blonegen = to grease fat
– iro hwch â bloneg = to grease a sow with fat
– gwerthu mêl i berchen gwenyn = to sell honey to a bee keeper
– mynd i ‘ngheg i chwilio am fy nhafod = to go to my mouth and look for my tongue
– gyrru halen i’r Heledd = to send salt to a salt pit
– golchi traed alarch = to wash a swan’s feet
– taflu ‘fale i’r berllan = to throw apples into an orchard

What about in other languages?

Llap y dwndwr – the drink of prattle

By Simon

Llap y dwndwr / Panad / Disgled

I discovered last night that an old Welsh expression for tea is llap y dwndwr [ɬap ə ˈdʊndʊr], which could be translated as meaning “the drink that makes one talkative” or “the drink of chatter”. It is also the name of a tune.

The word llap means soft and wet, and appears in the expression bwyd llap (soft and wet food), which can refer to soup (cawl) or rice pudding (bwdin reis).

The word dwndwr means noise; to make a noise; to bluster, prattle or babble; or to daunt, hector or bully. A related word is dwndrio = to babble or talk too much. It appears in the expressions cap y dwndwr = rattlepate (a frivolous, talkative person), and rhap y dwndwr = a gossip, or loud-mouthed person.

Other poetic/slang names for tea include dail y dwndwr (“the leaves of chatter”) and llysiau’r dwndwr (“the herbs of chatter”).

In colloquial Welsh tea is te [tɛ] and a cup of tea is panad or paned in North Wales – this comes from cwpaned o de (cup of tea), and it’s disgled (o de) in South Wales.

Does tea have any interesting names in other languages?

Source: Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru

Mardy

By Simon

The word mardy came up in conversation last night, and the friends who mentioned it, who are from Yorkshire and Lancashire, said that it could mean annoying or weak. As I hadn’t heard it before, I thought I’d find out more about it.

According to Wiktionary means sulky or whinning, e.g. ‘She’s being a mardy girl’, or non-co-operative, bad tempered or terse. It is used in the East Midlands, South Yorkshire and a few other places in northern England, as well as in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Derbyshire.

It is often combined with other words such as cow and bugger, and is sometimes shortened to mard, which appears in the phrase, ‘he’s got a mard on’ (he’s in a bad mood), which could also be ‘he’s in a mardy’.

It possibly comes from marred = to be perplexed or troubled; to be spoilt, cosseted, overly indulged, and a related expression is to mard = to cosset (a child).

Have you heard this word before?

Do you use it?

Nebuď směšný!

By Simon

I came across a lovely Czech word today – směšný [‘smɲeʃni:] – which means funny or ridiculous, and sounds quite funny to me. I think it comes from smích (laughter), from the Proto-Slavic *směxъ [source]

Related words include:

– směšnost = ridiculousness; absurdity
– směšně = ridiculously
– smich = laughter
– smát = to laugh
– posměšek = a jeer, sneer, gibe
– posmívat se = to sneer, jeer at; to mock, tease, taunt
– úsměv = smile
– usmát se = to smile

The title of this post, Nebuď směšný!, means ‘Don’t be absurd!’.

Sun dribbles

By Simon

Sand ripples / Sun dribbles

While walking along by estuary of the River Dwyryd at Portmeirion yesterday, the Czech friend I was with asked me the name of the patterns in the sand and mud made by water. I wasn’t sure and suggested ripples or sand ripples. She misheard the latter and thought I said sun dribbles, which I really like the sound of.

I checked today and discovered that the marks in sand and mud left by flowing water are known, rather boringly, as ripple marks, or wave-formed ripples, according to Wikipedia.

Do they have more poetic names in other languages?

Nemocnice

By Simon

One of the Czech lessons I studied yesterday included the word nemocnice (hospital), and though I hadn’t seen or heard it before, I was familiar with the word nemocný (ill; sick) and guessed from the context that nemocnice was a hospital. It feels good to be able to work out the meanings of words from their form and context, and this is somewhat easier in Czech as most words seem to be built from native roots, rather than being borrowed from other languages.

Words related to nemocnice include:

– nemoc = illness; disease
– moc = power, potency, force, forcefulness; strength
– mocný = powerful; mighty
– mocnost = power (nation, state)
– bezmoc = helplessness, powerlessness
– bezmocný = powerless, helpless

Source: Wikitionary

Hospital in Czech is also špitál or lazaret, which is probably related to the Italian lazzaretto (a leper hospital; place of quarantine) or the French lazaret (an isolation hospital for patients with contagious diseases). The Italian word comes from Nazaretto, a quarantine station in Venice, which was named after Santa Maria di Nazareth, a church on the island where it was located [source].

Vellichor

By Simon

I came across a number of interesting words today on BuzzFeed, including vellichor, the strange wistfulness of used bookshops, and limerence, the state of being infatuated with another person.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows defines vellichor as:

n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

I suspect it might be a made-up word, but it’s a good one.

According to Wikipedia, Limerence is:

… an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term “limerence” for her 1979 book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love to describe the concept that had grown out of her work in the mid-1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.

So it’s a genuine word, though not one I’ve come across before.