Category: Words and phrases

Parades

By Simon

Last weekend I saw a couple of parades – a small and rather damp one in Bangor on Saturday that was part of the Bangor Carnival – and a rather bigger and more elaborate one on Sunday in Manchester that was part of the Manchester Day celebrations. This got me wondering about the origins of the word parade.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary parade meant “a show of bravado” and “an assembly of troops for inspections” in the 1650s, and comes from the French word parade (a display, show, military parade). This comes either via Middle French, via the Italian parate (a warding or defending, a garish setting forth) or the Spanish parada (a staying or stopping), from the Vulgar Latin *parata, from the Latin parer (arrange, prepare, adorn). Parade came to be applied to non-military processions in the 1670s.

Parer comes from the Latin parare (to make ready), via the Old French parer (to arrange, prepare, trim), from the Proto-Indo-European root *per- (to bring forward/forth).

Panache, pegs and pinafores

By Simon

One thing we discussed last night at the French Conversation Group was whether panache means the same thing in French as it does in English.

According to the OED, panache [/pəˈnaʃ/ (UK) /pəˈnæʃ/ (USA)] comes from the Middle French pennache, which originally meant a tuft or plume of feathers, and by the late 19th century had come to mean “manly elegance or swagger, chivalrous or heroic courage, flamboyance, elegance, style”.

Pennache comes from the Italian pennacchio (plume), from the post-classical Latin pinnāculum, a dimmunitive of pinna (wing, feather, pointed peak), which comes from the Proto-Indo-European *bend- (something protruding). Other words that possibly come from the same root include pin, peg, pinafore, pinion and pinacle.

According to Le Dictionnaire, the French word panache means:

– ornement composé de plumes flottantes, placé sur une coiffure = an ornament of floating feathers worn on the head
– élément qui rappelle la forme de cet ornement = something resembling such an ornament
– surface triangulaire du pendentif d’une voûte en forme de sphère = a triangular area of a roof pendant in the shape of a sphere
– (au sens figuré) élégance et brio = (figuratively) elegance and panache

According to Reverso, panache can also mean:
– a plume (of smoke/water) = une panache (de fumée/d’eau)
– showiness

Some examples:
– avec panache = gallantly
– sans panache = unimpressive

A related word is panaché, which means:

– décoré de couleurs variées = decorated with various colours / varigated / colourful
– composé de différents éléments = made up of different parts / mixed
– boisson qui est composée de bière et de limonade = shandy (a mixture of beer/lager and lemonade)

Some examples:
– glace panachée = mixed ice cream
– salade panachée = mixed salad
– œillet panaché = variegated carnation

The verb panacher (to mix) also exists.

An alternative way to say ‘with great panache’ is avec maestria.

Fá dtaobh de

By Simon

The Irish expression fá dtaobh de means about, as in tá mé ag cainnt fá dtaobh de (I am talking about it). It is most commonly used in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, where it’s pronounced something like /fa’duːdə/. In other parts of Ireland it would be pronounced something like /fa.d̪ˠiːv.dʲe/, though other words are generally used: faoi or ina thaobh.

I’m familiar with the Dongel version of this expression, as I’ve been going to Donegal to speak and sing in Irish every summer for the past 8 years, but I’d never seen it written down before so didn’t know how to spell it. I came across it today in a spoof article in the Donegal Dollop, in which a Donegal man discovers that ‘faduda’ is not a real Irish word. The article mentions a number of other Donegal expressions, such as “mashadahollay” (más é do thoil é = please) and “cateeya” (cad chuige = why). These ‘phonetic’ spellings give a better idea of the Donegal pronunciation than the standard spellings.

Students of Irish often struggle with is spelling and pronunciation – when you hear Irish words spoken and compare them to their written versions it can be hard to make connections between the two. Irish does have a regular spelling system, but it is quite complex – many letters are not pronounced, or are pronunced in unfamilar whys – e.g. bh & mh = /vˠ/ or /w/, and words run into each other and bits fall off. For example, thank you is go raibh maith agat – pronouncing the syllables separately you get something like /go/, /ɾˠɛ̝̈vʲ/, /mˠa/, /agˠət̪/, but in normal speech it’s more like /gˠərˠəmˠagˠət̪/, at least in Donegal.

Pronunciation can take quite a while to get to grips with, even with languages with relatively straightforward spelling systems and phonologies like Spanish and Italian. There are many subtleties of pronunciation that can only really be acquired with a lot of careful listening and mimicing.

Flam paradiddles & Pataflaflas

By Simon

I came across the term flam paradiddle on the radio the other day and thought at first it might be used to describe some kind of movement – maybe a dance move or a skateboarding trick. Now I know that a flam paradiddle one of the patterns or rudiments used in drumming, or rather a combination of those rudiments.

A diddle is “a double stroke played at the current prevailing speed of the piece.”

A paradiddle “consists of two single strokes followed by a double stroke – i.e. RLRR or LRLL”

A flam “consists of two single strokes played by alternating hands (RL or LR). The first stroke is a quieter grace note followed by a louder primary stroke on the opposite hand. The two notes are played almost simultaneously, and are intended to sound like a single, broader note.”

A flam paradiddle is “a paradiddle with a flam on the first note. Also known as a flamadiddle.”

Source: Wikipedia

Another interesting term used in drumming is a pataflafla, which is “a four-note pattern with flams on the first and last notes.”

The etymology of these words is obscure.

So if any of my friends who are into drumming start talking about flam paradiddles or similar, I now have an idea of what they mean.

Les giboulées de mars

By Simon

April showers (from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthnecumbria/weather/calendar_competition/april/april_gallery_75.shtml)

The other day I discovered that the French equivalent of April Showers is Les giboulées de mars, or ‘March showers’. April showers sound soft and light to me, whereas Les giboulées de mars sound unpleasantly wet.

April showers are showers, often heavy, that fall in Spring, especially in March and April, in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the UK and Ireland, and also in France. They occur when the jet stream starts to move north in early spring letting strong winds and rain, and sometimes sleet and snow, sweep in from the Atlantic [source].

The word giboulée /ʒi.bu.le/ means sudden, short shower often mixed with snow or sleet, or in French ‘Pluie soudaine et brève souvent mêlée de neige ou de grésil.‘ [source]. It’s etymology is uncertain and is possibly related to the Langue d’Oc words giboulado (shower), gibourna (to sizzle) and/or gibournado (shower) [source]. Another French word for shower is averse.

Honchos

By Simon

I thought that the word honcho as in head honcho (big leader / big cheese) came from Japanese. The OED and the Online Etymology Dictionary both say that it comes from the Japanese word 班長 (hanchō) or squad / team leader, and that it was borrowed by American servicemen in Japan and Korea in 1947-1953.

However, according to The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky, which I’m reading at the moment, the word honcho is a version of the Basque word jauntxo /xaunʧo/, a wealthy. powerful, rural landowner – a word with a ironic, negative undertone. From jaun (sir / lord / god). This sounds kind of plausible, though I haven’t found any other sources which make the same claim.

The book is interesting and includes quite a few bits of Basque language, and even some recipes. It is also somewhat biased in favour of the Basques.

Haunted by the blank page

By Simon

Here are a few interesting French expressions I discovered this week:

– le tapis roulant à bagages = luggage/baggage carousel, or literally a “rolling carpet for baggage” – shame it isn’t a tapis volant (flying carpet)!

What do you call the conveyer belt thing that where you (hope to) retrieve your bags after a flight?

– le/la bagagiste = baggage handler – sounds like someone who really doesn’t like baggage. Maybe the reason why the French bagagistes seem to be on strike so frequently is that they can only bring themselves to handle baggage for limited periods.

– la hantise de la page blanche = writer’s block, or literally “obsessive fear of the white/blank page” – a good way to describe the condition. L’hantise comes from hanter (to haunt), from the Old Norse heimta (to bring home). The haunted meaning possibly came from English during the 19th century period of Anglomania. or from the Norman words hanté (visited by ghosts, haunted) and hant (ghost) [source].

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block / fear of the blank page? If you do, how do you overcome it?

To ginger up

By Simon

The other day I came across the expression to ginger up in an English-French dictionary (it’s secouer or animer in French). Examples given include:

– the ideal man to ginger up the chat show formula
– Attempts to ginger up the tennis club’s social nights proved unsuccessful.

The French word secouer is used in the context of ‘gingering up’ a person or organisation, while animer, which is related to animate, is used when gingering up involves making things more exciting. I can see how the application of real or metaphorical ginger might spice things up, but have never heard or seen the phrase ‘ginger up’ used in this context. Have you?

According to the Phrase Finder, to ginger up means to excite or enthuse, and an alternative version of the expression is ‘to get someone’s ginger up’. The former version was recorded by Francis Grose, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785): “To feague a horse, to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, to make him lively and carry his tail well.” It then appears again in 1895 in reference to baseball.

The latter version appears frist appears in print in 1843 in The Attaché by Thomas Haliburton, or Sam Slick in England: “Curb him [a horse], talk Yankee to him, and get his ginger up.”

De-risking and de-scaling

By Simon

The other day I heard a discussion on the radio (BBC Radio 4) in which the words de-risk and de-scale, cropped up. They caught my attention because I hadn’t come across them before.

The context was the UK Sports Minister talking about the London Olympics, and he said, “As the project moves on it de-risks and de-scales.” I took this to mean that the size and risks involved in the project are reduced as it proceeds. I’m not sure if the Minister made them up on the spot, or if he’d heard them or read them somewhere.

De-risk gets 310 results in Google, and derisk gets only 29. De-scale and descale get 5 and 6 results respectively. So it seems these words aren’t all that common. Have you heard them before?

Stookies, stucco and stalks

By Simon

I heard the word stookie on the radio the other day as was mystyfied as the it’s meaning – the context didn’t help. Forunately the person who mentioned it explained that it’s a Scottish word for plaster cast – the kind of thing you might have on a limb if you facture a bone. It’s also mention in this story on the BBC News site.

The Urban Dictionary provides this example of usage, Gonnae let me right a menshie oan yer stookie? (Are you going to let me write graffiti on your plaster cast?).

Wikitionary defines stookie as: plaster of Paris; plaster cast; (dialect) idiot; (dialect) shy person, and it apparently comes from stucco plus the diminutive suffix -ie.

Stucco comes from Italian, and means “stucco or plaster”, which comes from the Lombardic *stucki (crust, fragment, piece), from the Proto-Germanic *stukjan, *stukjaz, *stukō, *stūkō (stick, beam, stump), from the Proto-Indo-European *stAug- (stalk).

To me a stookie sounds like a more friendly thing to have on your arm or leg than a plaster cast, which is also known as a orthopedic or surgical cast. What do you think?