Category: Words and phrases

Wfftio

By Simon

wfftio [‘ʊftɪɔ] verb – to flout, dismiss, criticise

I’ve encountered the Welsh word wfftio quite a few times in things I’ve read and heard, but wasn’t quite sure what it meant. I heard it again this morning on Radio Cymru and decided to look it up.

Here are a few examples of wfftio in action:

Mae dadlau chwyrn wedi bod yn y cynulliad wrth i’r Prif Weinidog, Carwyn Jones, wfftio honiadau nad oedd safonau glendid bwyd wedi gwella yng Nghymru ers cyfres o achosion E.coli yn 2005.

There has been a fierce debate in the Assembly since the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, dismissed claims that food hygiene standards have not improved in Wales since the series of E. coli outbreaks in 2005.
[Source]

Gweinidog Addysg yn wfftio arolwg.
Education Minister criticises survey
[Source]

Mae Alun Pugh y Gweinidog Diwylliant wedi wfftio at y syniad o gyflwyno Deddf Iaith Newydd.

Culture Minister Alun Pugh has dismissed the idea of introducing a new Language Law.
[Source]

I think wfftio comes from the exclamation wfft [ʊft], which means ‘For shame!’ or ‘Fie!’ according to Y Geiriadur Mawr. Other Welsh exclamations include:

  • Ew! – Yuck!
  • Wb / Wbwb – Oh! Alas!
  • Wel – Well!
  • Wi – Oh! Alas!
  • Ych-a-fi! – Yuck! Urgh!

Word of the day – plumitif

By Simon

Plumitif [plymitif] nm – penpusher, bureaucrat; scribbler.

I came across today’s word last week at the French conversation group and particularly liked the sound of it. It comes from plume (feather, quill, nib) and is marked as pejorative in the dictionary. Plume comes from the Latin pluma (feather, down), from the Proto-Indo-European *pleus- (to pluck, a feather, fleece), which is also the root of the English word fleece.

Other words and expressions involving plumes include:

  • il y a laissé des plumes (he left some feathers there) – he came off badly, he got his fingers burnt
  • il perd ses plumes (he’s losing his feathers) – he’s going bald
  • elle a la plume facile (she has the easy pen) – writing comes easy to her
  • homme de plume – writer
  • prendre la plume – to write
  • je vis de ma plume – I live by my pen
  • je lui passe la plume – I’ll hand over to him / let him carry on
  • plumeau – feather duster
  • plumer – to pluck; to fleece (a person)
  • déplumer – to pluck
  • se déplumer – to moult, lose one’s feathers; to go bald
  • plumeux – feathery
  • plumier – pencil box/case

A penpusher is defined as an “Un-needed, beaureucratic employee not making any difference and hampering efficiency” [Urban Dictionary] or “someone who has a boring job in an office” [The Free Dictionary]. Are there similar words in other languages?

Twndis

By Simon

Twndis [‘tʊmdɪs] (nm, pl: twndisau) = funnel – also twnffat [‘tʊmfat]

I discovered the Welsh words twndis and twnffat last night. I’m not sure why the subject of funnels came up in conversation, but these words particularly appealed to me, especially the latter.

This morning I found out that the word tundish is used for funnel in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and that it originally meant “a funnel made to fit into the bung of a tun”. A tun is a large cask, but I’m sure you knew that [source]. These days a tundish is sort of funnel used in metal casting, and also in plumbing [source].

Tundish appears to be related to the Welsh word twndis, and the word tun is possibly of Celtic origin: – from the Middle Irish tunna, and the Old Irish toun (hide, skin).

Words for funnel in the Modern Celtic languages come from the same root: as well as twndis in Welsh, there’s tunnadair (funnel, filler, tunning-dish, tunner) in Scottish Gaelic, tonnadóir in Irish, tunneyder in Manx and tum in Breton.

I’m not sure of the etymology of twmffat, but ffat on it’s own means slap or pat, and ffatio means to slap.

Word of the day – Sny

By Simon

I’ve heard today’s word sny in the Czech phrase hezký sny and from the context I thought that it meant “sleep well” or something similar. I knew that hezký meant beautiful or pretty and assumed that sny meant sleep.

When I finally got round to looking it up, I discovered that it means “nice dreams”. Hezký has a number of meanings, including pretty, seemly, sweet, attractive, becoming, bonny, comely, fine, neat, endearing, fair, good-looking, handsome, nice, smart, good, lovely, and so on.

Sny means dreams or moonshine, and is the plural of sen, which also means ambition, vision or sleep. The verb, to dream, is snít.

Do you have any interesting ways of wishing some one a good night?

One I know is “Good night, sleep tight, hope the bedbugs don’t bite”.

Word of the day – Splodge

By Simon

Splodge [splɒdʒ], noun – a large irregular spot or blot; verb – to mark (something) with such a blot or blots [source]

I’m making some apple and raspberry jam at the moment using a recipe that calls for a ‘lemon juice splodge’. It just specify how much lemon juice there is in a splodge, so I guessed it was a bit more than a splash or a splat.

I’m looking for ways to use the glut of apples from my apple tree at the moment and have made various types of jam, jelly, cakes and puddings with them so far. If you have any good recipes for apple jam, jelly, ice cream, sorbet or others that use plenty of apples, please let me know.

Chinese gooseberries

By Simon

Kiwifruit

I discovered today that the kiwifruit is known as 獼猴桃 (míhóu táo) or macaque peach in China. It is the edible berry of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa native to southern China, and the name kiwifruit was dreamt up by marketing people in New Zealand in the 1950s, before which it was called the Chinese gooseberry in English.

In Chinese it’s also called:

  • 獼猴梨 (míhóu lí) – macaque pear
  • 藤梨 (téng lí) – vine pear
  • 陽桃 (yáng táo) – sunny peach – now used to refer to star fruit
  • 木子 (mùzi) – wood berry
  • 毛木果 (máo mù guǒ) – hairy tree fruit
  • 奇異果 (qíyì guǒ) -“unusual/wonder fruit” – the most common name in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which also sounds like kiwi

[Source]

Many other languages call it a kiwi, or variants of that name, eg kivi, kiivi, ciwi, etc. Do you know of any other interesting names for it?

If you want to talk about more than one of this type of fruit, do you say kiwis, kiwifruit, kiwifruits, or something else?

Jumpers and sea pigs

By Simon

Llamhidydd / Porpoise / Mereswine

Llamhidydd, (n/m) [pl. llamhidyddion] – porpoise, dancer, acrobat, jumper

Today’s word appears in a book I’m reading at the moment and is a new one to me. I’m not sure about the etymology of the hid part, but llam means jump, and the suffix -ydd indicates a person or agent.

As well as jump, llam also means fate, leap, bound, stride, step, and is found in such words as llamddelw – puppet (jump + image/idol); llamu and llamsach – to jump; llawsachus – capering, prancing, and llamwr – leaper. Llam most likely comes from the same root as the Irish léim, Scottish Gaelic leum, Manx lheim, Cornish lamma and Breton lam. More common Welsh words for jump and to jump are naid and neidio.

Other Welsh words for porpoise include môr-fochyn (sea pig) and morhwch (sea sow), which is also applied to dolphins. The Irish for porpose is muc mhara (sea pig).

The English word porpoise comes from the French pourpois, which is from Medieval Latin porcopiscus, which is a compound of porcus (pig) and piscus (fish).

Another English word for porpoise is apparently mereswine, the roots of which can be traced back to the Proto-Germanic *mariswīnaz (dolphin, porpoise), from *mari/*mariz (sea) and *swīnaz/*swīnan (swine, pig), via the Middle English mereswin and the Old English mereswīn.

Casual water

By Simon

casual water – “a temporary accumulation of water on the golf course”. Technically the accumulation of water has to be above ground and visible, and this does not include lakes; wet, spongy, mushy or muddy ground; dew or frost, or snow or ice [source].

So in other words casual water is another way of describing a puddle, a diminutive of the Old English word pudd (ditch) which originally referred to pools and ponds as well [source].

Word of the day – spurtle

By Simon

Spurtle

I came across today’s word, spurtle, in a book I’m reading at the moment. It’s described as “a wooden utensil for stirring porridge” in the book, while according to Wikipedia it is:

a Scots kitchen tool, dating from at least the fifteenth century. It was originally a flat, wooden, spatula-like utensil, used for flipping oatcakes on a hot griddle. This terminology is now confined to Angus and Perthshire.

Over time, the original implement changed shape and began being used specifically for stirring oatmeal and soups. The rod-like shape is designed for constant stirring which prevents the porridge from congealing and so becoming lumpy and unappetising. It looks like a fat wooden dowel, often with a contoured end to give the user a better grip.

A Golden Spurtle is the first prize at the World Porridge Making Championships, which take place in Carrbridge in Scotland.

The Spurtle is also the name of a Scottish Country dance.

The etymology of spurtle is uncertain, however while searching for it, I found a possibly related word in A etymological dictionary of the Scottish language:

SPURKLE, A sort of spattle. “Scutching spurkle, a stick to beat flax.” “Thacking spurkle, a broad-mouth’d stick for thatching with”. […] perhaps Spurkle is merely a variety of Spurtle.

Word of the day – Petrichor

By Simon

Petrichor, noun, /ˈpɛtrɨkər/ – the scent of rain on dry earth.

It comes from the Greek πέτρος (petros – stone) and ἰχώρ (ichor – the fluid that flows in the veins of the Greek gods), and was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers, I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas. The smell isn’t of the rain itself but comes from the oils released by vegetation when rain falls [source].

I found this word while searching for dripple, which I hear on the radio last night and which was described as being a type of light rain that isn’t quite drizzle. The only references to dripple I could find gave it’s meaning as “weak or rare” and there was no mention of rain.

I also found the Beaufort Rain Scale, a spoof version of the Beaufort Scale which ranges from:

Force 0: Complete Dryness.
Absence of rain from the air. The gap between two periods of wet.
Associated Phrase: “it looks like it might rain.”

through

Force 4: Visible Light Shower.
Hair starts to congeal around ears. First rainwear appears. People start to remember washing left out. Ignored by all sportsmen except Wimbledon players, who dash for cover. A newspaper being read outside starts to tear slightly.
Associated Phrases: “it’s starting to come down now,” “it won’t last,” and “it’s settled in for the day now.”

to

Force 10: Hurricane.
Not defined inland – the symptoms are too violent and extreme (cars floating, newspaper readers lost at sea, people drowned by inhaling rain, etc.). So, if hurricane conditions do appear to pertain, look for some other explanation.
Associated Phrases: “oh my god, the water tank has burst – it’s coming through the kitchen ceiling,” and “i think the man upstairs has fallen asleep in his bath.”