Morning food and early meals

By Simon

Breakfast in Northern Germanic languages

Yesterday I learnt that the Danish word for breakfast is morgenmad [ˈmɒːɒnˌmað] (“morning food”), which makes sense [source].

Lunch is frokost (“early meal”), which made me think of the German word for breakfast Frühstück (“early piece”).

Frokost comes from the Middle Low German vrōkost (early meal), from vrō (early) and kost (meal, food) [source].

In Norwegian frokost is breakfast, and lunch is lunsj.

In Swedish breakfast is frukost and lunch is lunch.

In Danish dinner is aftensmad (“evening meal”), or middag (“midday”), which also means noon, banquet or lunch. In Norwegian and Swedish middag means dinner, noon or midday [source]. Somewhat confusing!

In Icelandic the meals are: morgunmatur (breakfast – “morning food”) hádegismatur (lunch – “noon food”) and kvöldmatur (dinner – “evening food”) [source].

In Faroese morgunmatur means breakfast, lunch or a snack [source]. Lunch is also miðmáli [source]. Dinner is døgurði [ˈtøːvʊɹɪ], which can also mean lunch [source], or nátturði [ˈnɔtːˌʊɹɪ] = dinner, supper (main) meal in the evening [source].

What do you call the different meals?

The first meal of the day is breakfast for me, whenever I have it. The meal in the middle of the day I used to call dinner, but now call lunch. The evening meal I call tea, or dinner if I eat out somewhere.

Honey eaters, brown ones and tramplers

By Simon

A Eurasian brown bear

In many European languages the words for bear have their origins in taboo avoidance. It is thought that people who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE) believed that if you called a bear by its true name, it would hear you and may harm you. So instead they used different names when referring to bears [source].

The words for bear in Germanic languages can be traced back to the PIE *bʰer- (brown), via the Proto-Germanic berô (bear).

Examples include bear (English / West Frisian), beer (Dutch / Afrikaans), Bär (German), Bier (Luxembourgish), björn (Icelandic / Swedish), and bjørn (Norwegian / Danish / Faroese) [source].

In Slavic languages the words for bear can all be traced back to the Proto-Slavic word medvědь, from *medu-ēdis, from medъ (honey) &‎ *(j)ěsti (to eat), so could be translated as “honey eater”.

Examples are медведь (Russian), médved (Slovenian), medvěd (Czech), niedźwiedź (Polish). The Hungarian word for bear, medve, possibly comes from the same root [source].

In Baltic languages the words for bear from the Proto-Baltic *talk-, *tlāk-, from Proto-Indo-European *tel-k-, *tl-ek- (to push, to hit, to kick, to trample), and could be translated as “trampler”, “stomper”, “pounder”, [source]. In Latvian the word is lācis, and in Lithuanian it’s lokys.

The PIE word for bear was *h₂ŕ̥tḱos, which is possibly related to destroying or destruction – another taboo avoidance? This is the root of *artos in Proto-Celtic, άρκτος (árktos) in Greek, ursus in Latin and ari in Albanian, and related words in modern Celtic and Romance languages [source].

Nonce Words

By Simon

This is a wug

A nonce word is “a word occurring, invented, or used just for a particular occasion”, or “a word with a special meaning used for a special occasion” [source].

The word nonce comes from the Middle English nonse / nones, from to þan anes / for þan anes (to/for the one (occasion, instance)). Here’s example of how it’s used: “That will do for the nonce, but we’ll need a better answer for the long term.” [source].

The term ‘nonce word’ was apparently coined by James Murray, the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary [source].

Some nonce words become more widely used. Others may be used only by certain people. Here are a few examples:

– quark – coined by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake. Adopted by Murray Gell-Mann for the subatomic particle [source].

– blurb – “A short description of a book, film, or other work, written and used for promotional purposes.” Coined by American humorist Gelett Burgess on a book dust jacket at a trade association dinner in 1907 [source].

– grok – “to drink; to drink in all available aspects of reality; to become one with the observed. Coined by Robert Heinlein in his book Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). Used to mean “to understand (something) intuitively; to fully and completely understand something in all of its details and intricacies.” [source].

– sniglet – coined by the American comedian Rich Hall for the 1980s TV series Not Necessarily the News. It is defined as, “any word that doesn’t appear in the dictionary, but should” [source].

– wug – a blue bird-like creature that appears in Jean Berko Gleason’s wug test, which investigates the acquisition of the plural form in English-speaking children. Know mainly to linguists. Also features in one of my songs.

A few nonce words I’ve coined include crumptious, snorf, snoob, zambalated, flartled, overflude, flimpsome, plood and tarpool. They appear in my song Plinkin Plookplooks.

I also coined the word omniglot in 1998. I wasn’t the first person to do so though – it also appears in Jenni Fleetwood’s 1988 book, The Intergalactic Omniglot. A book I didn’t know about until after I came up with the word. Has anybody read it?

Do you know of any other nonce words that have become more generally used?

Have you coined any yourself?

What a foofaraw!

By Simon

Have you ever come across the word foofaraw? If not, can you guess what it means?

I stumbled on it in a book I’m reading at the moment, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. It is used in the following context:

“Dictionaries, he explained, were records of the language as it is used, and so we must set aside our disdain for the adverb “good” [..] and record its long use in our dictionaries in spite of the rather pointless foofaraw around its existence.”

The reference to the use of good as an adverb is illustrated by the phrase “I’m doing good”, which pedants would tell you should be “I’m doing well”.

Foofaraw - definition

Merriam-Webster defines it as “frills and flashy finery; a disturbance or to-do over a trifle.”

Dictionary.com defines it as “a great fuss or disturbance about something very insignificant; an excessive amount of decoration or ornamentation, as on a piece of clothing, a building, etc.”

According to Wiktionary it means “Overly excessive or flashy ornamentation or decoration; Fuss over something of little importance.” It’s pronounced [ˈfu.fəˌɹɔ], was first used in writing in the 1930s, and is of uncertain origin.

Dictionary.com suggests that it may be related to the French word fanfaron (boasting, boaster), which is either imitative, or could come from Arabic فَرْفَار‎ (farfār), which is possibly the origin of fanfare in French and English. The word fanfaron is an obsolete English word for a bully, boaster or braggart [source].

I might use the word hoo-ha instead of foofaraw. It means “a fuss, uproar, commotion or stir; hype; brouhaha, hullabaloo”, and is also written hoohaa, hoohar, hoo-haa, hoo-har or hoo-hah. It possibly comes from the Yiddish הו־האַ‎ (hu-ha – a hullabaloo) [source].

Do you know other words with a similar mean to foofaraw or hoo-ha?

Infestigeiddio

By Simon

Today I was looking for podcasts about language and linguistics in various languages, and found an interesting one in Welsh – Hacio’r Iaith (Hacking Language).

The episode I listened to today included the word infestigeiddio (to investigate), which is an interesting example of an English noun that has been made into a Welsh verb. I haven’t seen this word written anywhere – it didn’t appear anywhere online, as far as I can discover, but does now. It is used in the following context:

Mae rhaid i ni rhoi i’r awdurdodau pŵer i infestigeiddio beth sy’n digwydd gyda data, gyda rhifau, gyda metrics hysbysebi, er enghraifft.

This means “We need to give the authorities power to investigate what is happening with data, with figures, with advertising metrics, for example.” It’s part of a discussion about social media sites like Facebook and the data they collect about their users.

There are a few other ways to say investigate in Welsh: ymchwilio, archwilio, astudio, gwneud ymchwiliad, gwneud ymholiad. The common root for most of these is chwilio [ˈχwɪljɔ] (to search, look for, examine, find) [source].

With some words you can just add io to make it a Welsh verb. With others, like investigate, the spelling needs some tweaking as well.

Other similar examples include licio (to like), parcio (to park), pacio (to pack), hwfro (to hoover / vacuum), and smwddio (to iron – from smooth).

Can you recommend interesting podcasts, especially about language and lingusitics, in other languages?

Genericization

By Simon

Some words were originally trademarked but have become generic and lost their trademark status. Is there are linguistic term for such words?

Here are some examples that I wasn’t aware were, or are, trademarked:

  • Adrenaline – also known as epinephrine, it is trademarked by Parke-Davis in the USA, but widely used generically elsewhere
  • Asprin – a medication used to treat pain, fever, or inflammation made from acetylsalicylic acid. Generic in the USA, but still trademarked by Bayer in many other countries
  • Dry ice – a solid form of carbon dioxide formerlly trademarked by the Dry Ice Corporation of America
  • Escalator – a moving staircase originally trademarked of Otis Elevator Company
  • Ping Pong – table tennis, trademarked by Parker Brothers
  • Plasticine – modelling clay, trademarked by Flair Leisure Products plc
  • Tarmac – still trademarked by Tarmac Ltd, but used generically
  • trampoline – originally trademarked by the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Company
  • Velcro – still trademarked by Velcro Companies but used generically

Can you think of other examples?

Or product names that are becoming generic?

Source: Wikipedia, robdkelly.com

Library mice and reading rats

By Simon

Illustration of a bookworm

I discovered today that in Romanian a bookworm (a keen reader) is un şoarece de bibliotecă (a library mouse), which I rather like, being a bit of a bookworm / library mouse myself.

In French there is a simliar term for a bookworm – rat de bibliothèque (library rat), and in German voracious reader or bookworm is known as a Leseratte (reading rat), and in Spanish the equivalent is ratón de biblioteca (library mouse).

Are there interesting words for bookworm in other languages?

A Tasty Font

By Simon

On an episode of Word of Mouth I listened today, they discuss the associations we have with different fonts.

Studies have found that different fonts can effect the way food tastes to you. For example, the same chocolate can taste sweeter, or less sweet, just because it’s labelled with different fonts.

Some examples of chocolate bars with different fonts

Which of the above would you prefer?

And no, I’m not planning to bring out an Omniglot chocolate bar, in case you’re wondering.

If Greek yoghurt, hummus or other Greek foods are labelled with a Greek-looking font, you may believe that they come from Greece and are more authentic than such products labelled with a different style of font.

Some examples of hummus packaging in different fonts

Which of these is most Greek?

Some fonts are seen as more masculine, while others are seen as more feminine.

Some examples of shop signs

Would you say these shop signs are masculine, feminine or neither?

What are your favourite fonts?

Are there fonts your really don’t like and/or don’t use?