Month: July 2010

Snap, Crackle and Pop

By Simon

Snap, Crackle, and Pop are the cartoon mascots of the breakfast cereal, Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. Those are also supposedly the sounds made by the cereal when you add milk to it and eat it.

I discovered today that the mascots have other names on other languages:

  • Pif! Paf! Pof! in Belgium, Italy & Netherlands
  • Cric! Crac! Croc! in Quebec
  • Pif! Paf! Puf! in Denmark
  • Riks! Raks! Poks! in Finland
  • Knisper! Knasper! Knusper! in Germany
  • Piff! Paff! Puff! in Norway and Sweden
  • Knap! Knaetter! Knak! in South Africa
  • Piff! Paff! Poff! in Switzerland

Do you know of any other names for them?

Government Opposition to Esperanto

By Simon

Esperanto plaque

Today we have a guest post by Alexis Bonari

Although Esperanto arguably has the potential to serve as a unifying linguistic force, not every government has been convinced that such unification would be a good idea. Here are a few historical examples, by country, of oppression faced by Esperanto speakers:

Russia

  • From 1895-1905, the Tsar of Russia outlawed all material printed in Esperanto.
  • In the year 1938, the leaders of Soviet Russia ordered that all registered Esperanto speakers be shot or deported to Siberia. Although the language was legalized again in 1956, there was still strong government opposition to its use. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that Esperanto was once again fully accepted by the Russian government.

Germany

  • In a 1922 speech and in Mein Kampf, Hitler stated that Esperanto was “a tool of Jewish world domination”.

Middle East

  • Iranian Mullahs initially encouraged Esperanto. Unfortunately, followers of the Baha’i religion began to show interest in incorporating the language into their teachings. In 1981, the Mullahs declared Esperanto a threat to the Islamic faith.

During the past decade, increased global access to the Internet has served to discourage overt government intervention in language use. Esperanto is thriving on online forums. Now that most of the bans have been lifted, many Esperanto enthusiasts hope to avoid further government intervention. It would seem that the language flourishes best where the least government regulation is present.

Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at onlinedegrees.org, researching areas of online universities. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

In-laws once removed

By Simon

The other day I started wondering there are terms to describe your relationship with your in-law’s relatives. For example, my sister’s husband is my brother-in-law, but is his sister some kind of in-law to me? She is my sister’s sister-in-law, but as far I can work out, there is no particular term to describe my remote connection to her – sister-in-law once removed, perhaps. Then there’s her husband and their children – are they any kind of in-laws to my sister or me?

Are specific terms for relationships in any of the languages you know?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, in-law is “anyone of a relationship not natural” and the earliest known use of the phrase in writing was in the form of brother-in-law. The law in question is Canon Law (church law), which defines degrees of relationship within which marriage is prohibited.

Conseil de l’Union européenne

By Simon

If you would like to work for the Conseil de l’Union européenne (Council of the European Union, aka Consilium) or other EU institutions, you have to take the entry examinations in a second language. According to an article I came across today, the British government believes this is unfair for Brits and has arranged that from next year the pre-selection tests for EU civil service exams can be taken in the candidate’s first language.

Has anybody considered trying to encourage more Brits to learn foreign languages, or is that just wishful thinking?

Poubelle

By Simon

Une poubelle

One of the things we discussed last night in the French conversation group was the origins of the word poubelle (bin / trash can). Fortunately one of us had an French etymological dictionary and we discovered that such receptacles are named after Eugène Poubelle (1831-1907), a lawyer, administrator and diplomat who was préfet of the Seine region of France and introduced the bin to Paris.

It was on 7th March 1884 that Poubelle decreed that owners of buildings must provide those who lived there with three covered containers for household rubbish, which was to be sorted into perishable items, paper and cloth, crockery and shells.

The containers proved popular with Parisians, who named them Boîtes Poubelle after Monsieur Poubelle, although building owners were not so keen as they had to pay for the containers and to have them emptied. Another group who didn’t welcome the Boîtes Poubelle were the chiffoniers (rag-and-bone men), who made their living from collecting rubbish.

As well as meaning bin, poubelle can also be used to refer to old cars in a poor state of repair – old bangers in the UK. Related words include:

  • camion-poubelle – bin lorry
  • jeter à la poubelle – to throw in the rubbish
  • sac poubelle – bin liner

The name Poubelle comes from pou bel (peu beau – just beautiful), from the dialect of Pas-de-Calais in northern France.

In English there are many words for poubelle. In the UK, for example, the small ones used inside are known as waste baskets, waste paper baskets, rubbish bins or bins; and the larger ones used outside are known as dustbins, rubbish bins, wheelie bins (if they have wheels) or bins. The ones in public places are known as litter bins. Names for such receptacles in the USA include trash can and garbage can, and I’m sure there are others.

In the UK rubbish is collected by bin men (the majority of them are men) who drive (dust)bin lorries / rubbish trucks / dust carts, and is taken to (rubbish) tips / dumps / landfills / recycling centres / incinerators. There are also official terms for all these – refuse disposal operatives, and such like. What about in other countries?