Category: Words and phrases

Science and Sign Language

By Simon

What do you do if you want to discuss scientific matters such as photosynthesis or magnetism in sign language?

Well, most users of British Sign Language have to spell out the such words using finger spelling, which is quite cumbersome and time consuming. Recently however, the Scottish Sensory Centre at Edinburgh University‘s School of Education started to develop a collection of new signs for mathematical and scientific terms which will not only be more convenient, but will also help students to understand the scientific concepts with gestures which make intuitive sense.

According to an article in The Herald, the new signs are being developed by a BSL expert from the School of Education with help from teachers and others who help deaf students, and also from deaf scientists at the University of Durham.

Word of the day – luthier

By Simon

A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments. The word comes from the French luth (lute). Luthiers are often divided into two categories: those who deal with plucked or strummed instruments, such as guitars, banjos, mandolins, etc, and those who devote themselves to bowed instruments, such as violin, violas and cellos. The latter are also known as archetiers, from the French arch (bow).

Do you know if there are special names for makers or repairers of others kinds of musical instruments?

Word of the day – Arbejdsglæde

By Simon

Arbejdsglæde is a Danish word meaning literally “work gladness/joy”. There are apparently similar words in the other Scandinavian languages, and also in Dutch (arbeidsvreugde) and German (Arbeitszufriedenheit). The closest equivalent I can find in English is job satisfaction, though this doesn’t seem to have quite the same meaning as the Danish one.

I found this word on Alex Kjerulf’s blog, Chief Happiness Officer, in a post where he discusses some of the differences in work cultures between Scandinavia and Japan, where there’s a word meaning ‘death by overwork’ 過労死 (karōshi).

Do you know if there’s an equivalent to arbejdsglæde in other languages?

Word of the day – transliteration

By Simon

Transliteration, from the Latin trans, across, and littera, letter, is the practice of transferring a text from one writing system to another. Transliteration can be used to give people who can’t read other alphabets an idea how to pronounce words and names, though without some knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of pronunciation of the original languages, their pronunciation will probably sound only vaguely like the original.

In phrase books you often find transliterations designed to show how to pronounce things based on the mother tongues of the readers. Such guides tend to be confusing as the ‘phonetics’ might not make much sense to you. A few phrase books and language course provide IPA pronunciation guides, which are great, if you’re familiar with the IPA.

In the phrases section on Omniglot, I try to provide transliterations for all languages written with non-Latin writing systems. Many languages have several different transliteration systems and I usually choose the most widely-used. The transliterations may not make sense to everyone, but there are recordings of quite a few of the phrases, so you can at least hear how to pronounce them. Ideally there would be sound files for all the phrases, plus maybe IPA transcriptions, and with your help, maybe that will be the case one day.

I chose this word today because someone suggested that some of the transliterations on my phrases pages are confusing, especially to Americans. The trouble is, if I made the transliterations American-friendly, people from other countries might not find them useful.

Criticism and shoes

By Simon

There’s a saying in English that goes something like this: “don’t criticise someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes”. A corollary that’s sometimes added is: “If they don’t like your criticism, you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have their shoes”.

Aislinn Thomas, whose blog, In Your shoes, describes how she puts this saying into practice by actually wearing other people’s shoes for a day, is looking for equivalents of this phrase in other languages. Can you help?

Word of the day – ariandy

By Simon

I came across today’s word, ariandy, while looking for something else in one of my Welsh dictionaries, Y Geiriadur Mawr. It combines arian, silver / money, with dy, a mutated form of tŷ, house, and is an archaic word for bank, as in a place where money is kept. The normal word for bank is the loanword banc.

Another example of a word made up of native roots being replaced by a foreign loanword is cornmwg, chimney, from corn, horn and mwg smoke – the usual word for chimney is simnai.

Word of the day – locavore

By Simon

A locavore, which was the Oxford Word of the Year 2007, is someone who tries to eat only locally-grown food. The word was coined in 2005 by a group of four women in San Francisco who come up with the idea of only eating food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Since then, quite a few similar groups have emerged in other areas.

Locavores buy food from farmers’ markets, or grow or pick their own food, and argue that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. They also tend to avoid buying food for supermarkets because they argue that transporting food over long distances is wasteful of energy and produces much pollution.

There’s more information at: www.locavores.com

Word of the day – solstice

By Simon

As today is the shortest day of the year, at least in the northern hemisphere, I thought solstice would be a good word to choose. It comes, via French, from the Latin solstitium, the point at which the sun seems to stand still, from sol, sun, plus sistere, to come to a stop, make stand still.

Today is the winter solstice, or hibernal solstice in Latin, and the point where the earth tilts away from the sun the most. In some cultures, solstices are seen as marking the end and beginning of years or periods, while in other, they mark mid points. In English, for example, the winter solstice is also known as midwinter, while the summer solstice is know as midsummer.

Details of festivities connected with the winter solstice in many different cultures

Do you do anything to celebrate or mark the winter solstice?

Word of the day – panettone

By Simon

A photo of a panettone

This week we’ve had a Secret Santa style exchange of gifts at the office. Quite a few of those involved asked for the money to be donated to charity, but there were a few actual presents. Someone very generously gave me what I thought was a large cake, but have since discovered is a kind of cake-shaped bread from Milan called panettone.

The name panettone comes from the Italian word panetto, a small loaf bread. The -one end indicates it’s large, so is a “little big loaf”, and very tasty as well. Here’s a recipe, if you want to try making a panettone yourself.

Going to the ball

By Simon

This evening I’ll be going to the office Christmas party. This year it’s called “the Ice Ball”, which got me thinking about the names of such events.

A ball, as in a formal party involving dancing, comes from the Greek, ballizein, to dance, jump about, via the Latin ballare, to dance, and the Old French baller, to dance. The words ballet and ballad share the same root, as does bailar (to dance) in Spanish and Portuguese.

The word dance comes from the Old French dancier, which possibly came from Frankish.

Other dance names include:
waltz, from the German walzen, to roll, dance
polka, from the Czech polka, Polish woman, or from pulka, half, for the half-steps of Bohemian peasant dances
tango, from Argentine Spanish tango, which was originally the name of an African-American drum dance, and possibly came from a Niger-Congo language.
jig, from the Middle French giguer, to dance; or from the German Geige, violin, meaning a piece of sport or trick.

More information about the etymology of the names of dances