Category: Words and phrases

Petit chenapan!

By Simon

Last night at the French conversation group we were discussing how to say rascal in French, because one of the beers being served last night is called rascal. I found quite a few possible translations, each of which has slightly different meanings:

  • vaurien = good-for-nothing, scoundrel; (to child) petit vaurien ! = you little devil!
  • fripon = [n] rogue; [adj] mischievous, roguish; (to child) petit fripon ! = you little scamp/rogue!
  • polisson = [adj] mischievous, cheeky; saucy, naughty – une chanson polissonne = a racy saucy song; [n] little devil / rogue / scamp
  • gredin = rascal, rogue
  • maraud = rascal, rapscallion
  • chenapan = rascal, rogue, scoundrel (humourous)
  • bélître = rascal; dandy
  • canaille = [adj] roguish; coarse, vulgar; [n] scoundrel, crook – petite canaille ! = you little devil / rascal!

Sources: Larousse & Reverso.

The English word rascal, which I particularly like the sound of, comes from the Anglo-Norman word rascaile, from the Middle French rascaille (rabble, common people), possibly from the unattested verb *rasquer (to scrape).

Children are often the ones called rascals or little rascals in English. Is it the same in other languages, if they have similar words?

Mouth to mouth with the night

By Simon

I discovered an interesting idiom in Scottish Gaelic today: beul ri beul na h-oidhche, which means near nightfall, or literally “mouth to mouth with the night”. Are there interesting expressions in other languages for different times of the day?

The word beul /bial̪ˠ/ means mouth; beginning; opening; edge; gunwale, and in found in such expressions as:

  • beul an latha = daybreak
  • beul na h-oidhche = nightfall, dusk
  • eadar beul-oidhche is beul-latha = from dusk till dawn
  • beul-aithris = folklore, oral tradition
  • am beul a’ bhaile = on everyone’s lips (“in the mouth of the town”)
  • beul air gualainn = blabbermouth, without reticence, not to hold back (“mouth on shoulder”)
  • beul fo bhonn = upside down (“mouth under sole”)
  • beul gun phutan = chatterbox, blabbermouth, unable to keep a secret (“a mouth without a button”)
  • port á beul = lilting, mouth music

Source: Am Faclair Beag

Ресторанчики

By Simon

I came across the word ресторанчики (restoranchiki) in the Russian lesson I’m working on today. It is the plural of ресторанчики, a diminutive of ресторан (restaurant), which has no exact equivalent I can think of in English – maybe restaurantette. You could say a little restaurant and a tiny restaurant, but I’m not sure if that has the same meaning. Can you suggest any alternatives in English?

It appears in the phrase “На Мальте очень хорошие маленькие ресторанчики, совсем недорогие.” (Malta has many very good, small restaurants, which are all cheap.)

Russian and other Slavic languages seem to use lots of diminutives like this, and I think Portuguese does as well. Do other languages?

Dialing a telephone

By Simon

Rotary dial phone

An email arrived today from Phil S, who has been wondering about the quirkiness of the phrase “to dial a telephone”, which is ubiquitous and exclusive in its meaning and yet has, of course, become totally divorced from the original physicality of the phrase. He would like to know:

– What idioms do other languages use, and what’s their literal meaning? Do they similarly refer to rotary telephones even though those are no longer in use? French and Italian use words with the root meaning of “compose”, whereas the German word, anwählen, seems like a form of “to choose”.

– In cultures where widespread adoption of the telephone has happened only recently (if at all), and mobile phones are the norm, I’d imagine that some local languages reflect that, i.e. their telephone-related words have no trace of a relationship to rotary dials, land lines, etc.

– Also, per the OED the verb “dial” apparently dates to 1921 in its phone-related usage, but is much older when used as a word for “to survey with the aid of a dial” (1653) or “to measure as with a dial” (1821). Unfortunately the OED doesn’t discuss the expression “dial in” or “dialed in”, which is sometimes used in sports among other places.

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I’d be interested to know how many of you have used a rotary dial phone, and do you remember when you last used one?

I remember using such phones in Taiwan in the early 90s, and I think we were still using them in the UK at that time.

Gwymona

By Simon

Laver

While putting together this week’s mots de la semaine, some of the interesting words and phrases that come in the French conversation group I go to on Thursday evenings, I discovered the Welsh word gwymona [gʊɨˈmɔna], which means “to gather seaweed (for fertilizer)” – an interesting and specific meaning.

It comes from the word for seaweed, gwymon and suggests that seaweed and the gathering of it was sufficiently important in Wales for there to be a verb for it.

Are there a similar verbs in other languages?

A type of seaweed known as laver (porphyra umbilicalis) is sometimes eaten in Wales as a cold salad with lamb or mutton; heated and served with boiled bacon; or eaten in the form of laverbread (bara lawr), which is made from laver that is boiled for several hours, then minced or pureed, mixed with oatmeal and fried. Traditionally laverbread was eaten for breakfast with cockles and bacon.

Laver is far more commonly eaten in East Asia, especially in Japan, where it is known as 海苔 (nori), in Korea, where it’s called 김 (gim), and in China, where it’s known as 紫菜 (zǐcài).

Archerien

By Simon

An interesting word that came up in my Breton lesson today is archerien, which means police. It caught my attention because it has no obvious connection to the word police, and because it is completely different to the equivalent words in other Celtic languages:

– Welsh: heddlu (“peace force”)
– Cornish: kreslu (“peace host”)
– Irish: gardaí (síochána) (“guards of peace”); póilíní
– Manx: meoiryn shee (“peace keepers/stewards”); poleenyn
– Scottish Gaelic: poileas

The English word police comes from the French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (state, government), from the Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration, constitution). It is shares the same root as policy, politics, politician and various other words [source].

Many languages use variants on the word police, e.g. Politsei (Estonian), პოლიცია (polits’ia – Georgian), Polizei (German), पुलिस (pulis – Hindi), پلیس (pulis – Persian), Booliis (Somalia), Policía (Spanish), Pulis (Tagalog), but some do their own thing:

– Bavarian: Kibara
– Chinese: 警察 (jǐngchá); 公安 (gōng’ān)
– Faroese: Løgregla
– Greek: Αστυνομία (Astynomía)
– Hungarian: Rendőrség
– Icelandic: Lögregla
– Japanese: 警察 (keisatsu)
– Korean: 警察 (gyeongchal)
– Thai: ตำรวจ (tảrwc)

Are there other examples of languages with a word unrelated to police for police?

Things and stuff

By Simon

Yesterday I learnt the German word (das) zeug, which means stuff; gear; clothes; things; nonsense; rubbish; old material – a useful word when you don’t know or can’t recall a more specific term. Having a few such words up your sleeve in whatever language(s) you’re learning is a good idea. What are equivalent words in your language(s)?

Zeug also appears in the such expressions as:

– altes Zeug = junk, trash
– albernes Zeug = (silly) nonsense
– dummes Zeug = rubbish / nonsense
– … und solches Zeug = … and such things
– dummes / ungereimtes Zeug reden = to talk a lot of nonsense / drivel / twaddle
– dummes Zeug sabbern / schwafeln / schwatzen = to talk drivel
– rede kein dummes Zeug = don’t talk nonsense
– das Zeug zu etw haben = to have (got) what it takes to be sth
– er hat nicht das Zeug dazu = he hasn’t got what it takes

I also learnt how to say combine harvester (a very useful word!) in German: mähndrescher (“mane thresher”).

La gueule de bois

By Simon

This week I discovered that in French a hangover is une gueule de bois (“a wooden mouth”), which seems quite a good description of the condition.

In my thesaurus word for hangover in English include after-effects, katzenjammer, morning after, and the morning after the night before. Do you have any others?

I’ve heard of katzenjammer before, but not in this context – to me it’s the name of a band from Norway. Katzenjammer comes from German and means “cats’ wailing”, and according to the Free Dictionary, it means a confused uproar or a hangover, mainly in US English.

Welsh words for hangover include pen mawr (big head); pen clwc (addled head), salwch bore drannoeth (illness of the following morning) and salwch ar ôl y ffair (illness after the fair).

Since I gave up drinking about 11 years ago I haven’t suffered from a wooden mouth, an addled head or a cats’ wailing, and one reason why I gave up was because I didn’t enjoy such afflictions.

Everything but the kitchen sink

By Simon

The phrase ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ indicates many things or almost everything, as in ‘I took everything but the kitchen sink with me on holiday. The OED gives the earliest use of the phrase in writing as 1965. The kitchen sink part of the phrase apparently comes from army slang and appears in Partridge’s 1948 Dictionary of Forces’ Slang as “Kitchen sink, used only in the phrase indicating intense bombardment ‘They chucked everything they’d got at us except, or including, the kitchen sink.’”

According to Know Your Phrase, however, it appeared in The Syracuse Herald, an New York newspaper in 1918 in the following sentence.

“I have I shall rather enjoy the experience, though the stitlons are full of people trying to get out and the streets blocked with perambulators, bird cages and ‘everything but the kitchen sink.'”

I discovered yesterday that the French equivalent is ‘tout sauf les murs‘ (everything but the walls), as in j’ai tout emporté sauf les murs = I took everything but the walls.

In Welsh the equivalents are popeth dan haul (everything under the sun) and eich holl drugareddau (your whole bric-a-brac).

Are there equivalent idioms in other languages?

Coal biter

By Simon

kol-bitr in Elder Futhark and Younger Futhork

I learnt an interesting word in Old Norse recently: kol-bitr (“coal-biter”), which refers to an idle person who always sits by the fire. kol = coals, charcoal, and bitr = biting, snapping; cutting, sharp [source].

In Elder Futhark runes this is ᚲᛟᛚ᛫ᛒᛁᛏᚱ and in Younger Futhork runes it’s ᚴᚫᛚ᛫ᛓᛁᛐᚱ.

A visitor to Omnglot asked me about this expression and how to write it in Runes. I thought I’d post it here to show the kinds of questions that stream in to Omniglot HQ. I never know what I’ll be asked, and do my best to answer whatever questions come my way, and I’ve become pretty good at finding information, no matter how obscure.