Month: August 2016

When is a blog not a blog?

By Simon

When I meet people who are familiar with my website, some of them say how much they like my blog. When I ask them what they like about it, they mention things that are on my website, rather than on this blog, so I soon realise that they’re using the word blog to refer to my website, and possibly this blog, although not all of them are aware of the blog’s existence.

To me the distinction between my website and my blog(s) is clear. They may be on the same server, but they look different and have different functions. I’ve noticed that on some other websites though there isn’t such a clear distinction between blogs and other pages, especially on ones that have grown from blogs. Maybe that’s why people get confused.

Sometimes people tell me about mistakes on other sites which are linked to on Omniglot, thinking that I have something to do with them and can make changes on them. I understand why this happens as they might not realise that they’re on a different site.

None of these things are particularly important, but it’s interesting, to me at least, to notice them.

Is there a distinction between the words for website and blog in other languages?

Phrase finder

By Simon

Screenshot of the phrase finder

There is a now a new way to view the phrases on Omniglot: a Phrase finder.

This page enables you to see phrases in any combination of two languages. This is something I’ve been planning to set up for years, and now it’s finally ready.

So if your native language isn’t English and you want to see phrases in your mother tongue and another language, you can.

If you want to see the similarities and differences between two closely related languages, you can.

If you want to see two completely different languages side by side, you can.

The phrases are stored in server-side includes and displayed on the page using PHP, which was written by David Stephens of LinguaShop.

The phrases are currently available in 233 languages. If you can provide phrases in other languages, or additional phrases for the existing languages, or recordings, please contact me.

Suspending disbelief

By Simon

One of the things we talked about in the French conversation group this week was suspending disbelief, which is accepter les invraisemblances in French. That is “accepting the improbabilities”. Another way to say this in French is suspension d’incrédulité.

The word invraisemblance also means unlikeliness or inverisimilitude. Related words include invraisemblable (unlikely, incredible, implausible, improbable) and invraisemblablement (implausible, unlikely).

Its antonym is vraisemblance (plausibility, verisimilitude, likelihood). It comes from vrai (true, real), plus sembler (to seem).

Expressions incorporating vraisemblance include:

– selon toute vraisemblance = in all likelihood, apparently
– essai de vraisemblance = plausibility test
– contrôle de vraisemblance = absurdity check

Sources: Reverso, Linguee and Wikipedia

Apparently the English phrase suspension of disbelief was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions

See: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/suspension-of-disbelief.html

Are there interesting ways to express this idea in other languages?

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
le jeu de rôle role playing chwarae rhan, chwarae rôl
accepter les invraisemblances to suspend disbelief
nom à rallonge double-barrelled surname enw dwbl (baril)
fusil à canon double double-barrelled shotgun gwn haels dau/dwy faril, dwbl baril
l’épaule shoulder ysgwydd
l’omoplate (f); la scapulaire shoulder blade (human); scapular palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd
le paleron shoulder blade (animal) palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd
railler; se moquer de qn/qch;
se payer la tête de qn		 to make fun of sb/sth gwneud hwyl/sbort am ben rhywun;
chwerthin am ben rhywun
(liquide) trouble cloudy (liquid) cymylog
furtif stealth lladraddaidd
interdit banned gwarharddedig

Are you a phenom?

By Simon

I came across an interesting word in an article about hyperpolyglots I read today (it’s an old article, but I only just found it) – phenoms, which appears in the following sentence:

TIME spoke to Erard about phenoms who can speak more languages than they have fingers, whether anyone can do it and where the upper limits of human potential lie.

According to Dictionary.com, phenom [fɪˈnɒm] is an abbreviation of phenomenon and refers especially to a young prodigy. The definitions are “a person or thing of outstanding abilities or qualities” (informal), or “A phenomenally skilled or impressive person; a performing wonder, esp in sports”.

Apparently it comes from US baseball slang, and was first recorded in 1890.

Merriam-Webster defines a phenom as “a person who is very good at doing something (such as a sport)” or “a person of phenomenal ability or promise”.

Have you come across this word before?