Month: March 2015

The historical present

By Simon

The year is 1066 and William, Duke of Normandy, invades England to claim the throne he believes to be rightly his. Meanwhile King Harold Godwinson rushes to Hastings to do battle with William after defeating the Norwegian army of Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge.

This is an example of the historical or historic present, which involves using the present tense to talk about past events. It is also known as the dramatic present or narrative present. I’ve noticed its use in a number of documentaries I watched recently. It also appears in novels, such as Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, and Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is written entirely in the historical present. It sounds rather strange to me. Does it sound strange to you?

Les mots de le semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
appuyer sur le champignon;
mettre les gaz		 to put one’s foot down (to accelerate) rhoi dy droed ar y sbardyn; cyflymu
mettre les pieds dans le plat to put one’s foot in it rhoi’ch troed ynddi; cael caff gwag
faire de son mieux to put one’s best foot forward rhoi’r troed gorau ymlaenaf;
prysuro; brasgamu; estyn camau
se détendre to put one’s feet up cael (pum) munud; cael hoe fach;
cael seibiant; cael sbel, gorffwys
la grille railings rheiliau; barrau; rheilin
un accident (car) crash trawiad; gwrthdrawiad
avoir un accident de voiture to crash one’s car dryllio’ch ar; malu’ch car
emprunter (qch à qn) to borrow (sth from sb) benthyca (rhywbeth gan rywun);
cael benthyg (rhywbeth gan rywun)
prêter (qch à qn) to lend (sb sth) benthyca (rhywbeth i rwyun);
rhoi benthyg (rhywbeth i rwyun)
trembler to quake crynu
les régions sauvages (fpl) wilderness diffeithwch; anialwch; anialdir; gwylltir
l’espace (m) naturel wilderness area ardal wyllt/naturiol
en pleine traversée du désert in the wilderness (not prominent/active) yn y diffeitwch/anialwch;
allan o rym; heb rym
le chien courant; le chien de meute (hunting) hound bytheiad; helgi; ci hela
la meute the hounds; a pack (of hounds) cŵn; helgwn; haid o gŵn

Vellichor

By Simon

I came across a number of interesting words today on BuzzFeed, including vellichor, the strange wistfulness of used bookshops, and limerence, the state of being infatuated with another person.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows defines vellichor as:

n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

I suspect it might be a made-up word, but it’s a good one.

According to Wikipedia, Limerence is:

… an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term “limerence” for her 1979 book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love to describe the concept that had grown out of her work in the mid-1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.

So it’s a genuine word, though not one I’ve come across before.

Conferences

By Simon

I was invited to go to the Language Creation Society‘s conference recently and was thinking about it for while. Although I’m more interested in constructed scripts than constructed languages, I can find something of interest in all languages, whether natural or constructed, so I’ve decided to go. It takes place in Horsham in West Sussex, not far from London, on the 25th and 26th April. Are any of you going or thinking of going?

The week after that I’m going to Berlin for the Polyglot Gathering, so it’s going to be a busy few weeks. I’ve decided to go to Berlin by train this year – I considered it last year but thought it would be too complicated and expensive. This time I’ve grasped the nettle by the horns and have booked train tickets all the way from Bangor to Berlin and back using Loco2. It was a lot easier to arrange than I thought. I’ll be going via London, Brussels and Cologne, and staying overnight in Brussels at an AirBnB near the station on the way there. It works out slightly more expensive than flying, and takes longer, but I will see a lot more and won’t have to wait around for ages in airports. I’m looking forward to it.

Online language communities

By Simon

On an episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth, that I listened to recently, they talk about how English might change in the future. One interesting thing that came up was that new linguistics communities are emerging online on forums and other places where people spend a lot of time chatting to one another. One way this happens is that misspellings and typos, which might be accidental or deliberate, are adopted by other members of the virtual community and become a way of identifying insiders from outsiders. While such words might be viewed as errors by outsiders, for insiders they become the norm, and might eventually replace the ‘correct’ words.

So if you hear or see words being used in a way that seems odd, ignorant or incorrect way to you, don’t forget that that usage might be acceptable and normal among a particular group of people. This is one way how language changes and new varieties emerge.

Building up gradually

By Simon

I often see that when starting a new project, such as learning a language, we often commit ourselves to studying of a certain amount of time every day or every week – it might be an hour a day or at least 10 hours a week, for example. There’s nothing wrong with this, and if you’re very self-disciplined and consistent you can sustain it. However, it can be difficult to stick to such plans if you’re somewhat lacking in self-discipline, especially if your plans are ambitious.

I don’t usually announce my language learning plans publicly. I might mention that I’m concentrating on a particular language, but I don’t give exact details of how long and how often I study, as this tends to vary a lot. I might start out with the intention of studying for an hour a day, but rarely stick to it for any length of time Usually after a week or two my regular study times become short and/or more sporadic and I might start another project – learning another language or a new instrument, or something completely different.

To acquire a new habit, such as studying a language every day, it might be best to build up to it gradually. So instead studying for an hour a day from the start, maybe it would be better to do 5 or 10 minutes, and if you can keep that up for a week or two, then increase it to 15 or 20 minutes. By building it up gradually like this you ease gently into the new habit, which might make it more sustainable.

Do you jump straight into new projects? Can you maintain your enthusiasm for them, or do you tend to burn out or loose steam after a certain time? Have you tried building up to them gradually?