Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
Clinking Hardware
Yesterday I discovered that a hardware store in French is a quincaillerie [kɛ̃.kaj.ʁi]. This word can also refer to hardware, ironmongery or junk, or in French, une ensemble hétéroclite de choses inutiles (a motley collection of useless things) [source]
Quincaillerie comes from quincaille (hardware, utensils) a variant of clincaille [klɛ̃.kaj], which is related to clinquant [klɛ̃.kɑ̃] (flashy, kitsch, pretentious), from clinquer [klɛ̃.ke] (to rattle, make a metalic noise), which comes from the onomatopeic word clic (click).
Similar words exist in Spanish: quincallería (hardware store) and quincalla (low-value hardware, junk). They were borrowed from French [more details].
Incidentally, the word clinquant [ˈklɪŋkənt] also exists in English, and was borrowed from French, which was possibly borrowed from Dutch klinken (to sound, ring, clink), As an adjective it means glittery, gleaming, sparkling, dressed in, or overlaid with, tinsel finery, and as a noun it means Dutch metal, tinsel or glitter [source].
Computer / IT hardware is matérial (informatique) or hardware in French [source] and computer software is logiciel [source].
Language Quiz
Overflowing Vases
The French equivalent of the saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back” or “the last / final straw” is la goutte d’eau qui fait déborder le vase (the drop of water that makes the vase overflow). Which makes as much a sense, and no animals are harmed.
These sayings mean “The final additional small burden that makes the entirety of one’s difficulties unbearable.” The earliest known version in English appears in a debate between Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall in 1677: ‘the last Feather may be said to break a Horses Back’.
It is thought to be based on the Arabic proverb: اَلْقَشَّة اَلَّتِي قَصَمَت ظَهْر اَلْبِعِير (al-qašša allatī qaṣamat ẓahr al-biʕīr), or “The straw that broke the camel’s back”.
Other versions in English include:
- It is the last straw that overloads the camel (1799)
- It was the last ounce that broke the back of the camel (1832)
- The last straw will break the camel’s back (1836)
- As the last straw breaks the laden camel’s back (1848)
- This final feather broke the camel’s back (1876)
- The straw that broke the donkey’s back
- The last peppercorn breaks the camel’s back
- The melon that broke the monkey’s back
- The feather that broke the camel’s back
- The straw that broke the horse’s back
- The hair that broke the camel’s back
- The last ounce broke the camel’s back
There is also “the last drop makes the cup run over”, and variations on that theme in English.
Versions in quite a few other languages also refer to overflowing cups or other vessels, for example:
- German: der Tropfen, der das Fass zum Überlaufen bringt.
the drop that makes the barrel overflow - Italian: la goccia che fa traboccare il vaso
the drop of water that makes the glass overflow - Russian: ка́пля, перепо́лнившая ча́шу (káplja, perepólnivšaja čášu)
the drop that made the bowl overflow - Turkish: bardağı taşıran son damla
the last drop that makes the glass overflow
There are, however, quite different versions in some languages:
- Scottish Gaelic: théid capall don choille ach brisidh aon uallach a chridhe
the colt will go to the forest, but one burden will break his heart - Welsh: pennog gyda phwn dyrr asgwrn cefn ceffyl
adding a herring to a load break’s a horse’s backbone (not sure of this translation)
Are there interesting equivalents of this saying in other languages?
Sources: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_straw_that_broke_the_camel%27s_back#English
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_that_broke_the_camel%27s_back
https://geiriaduracademi.org/
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-last-straw.html
Language Quiz
Various Verses
Did you know that there’s a whole world out there beyond your screen?
It may be hard to believe, but apparently it does exist, and I even venture out into it occasionally.
What is this mythical place?
It has various names – some call it IRL (in real life) or RL (real life). Others call it the physical world or meatspace.
Meatspace, which is also written meat-space or meat space, is used online (often derogatorily) to refer to “the physical world, as opposed to the virtual world of the Internet.“ It was coined as analogy with cyberspace [source], and started to be used in the 1990s [source].
While writing this, I was thinking of other ways to refer to the real, physical world, and came up with realverse – an analogy of metaverse (see below). Apparently this word is already in use, at least to some extent. There are examples in this article: How to Connect #Metaverse to #Realverse.
The -verse suffix is used quite a bit in English at the moment. Some examples include:
- multiverse = The hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence.
- metaverse = A hypothetical future (counterpart or continuation of the) Internet, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space.
- wikiverse = The entire collective scope of wikis.
- gameverse = A universe depicted in one or more video games.
- Buffyverse = The fictional world, or universe, which serves as the setting for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_terms_suffixed_with_-verse.
Do you know of any other ways to refer to the real world in English or other languages?
Language Quiz
Fictile Dairymaids
I came across an interesting word yesterday that I hadn’t seen before: fictile. It means capable of being moulded into the shape of an artifact or art work; moulded clay or earth; relating to earthenware, or capable of being led or directed. Synonyms include pliable and moldable.
Fictile comes from Latin fictilus, from fictus (feigned, fictitious, false), from fingō (to shape, fashion, form, deceive, pretend), from Proto-Italic *fingō (to knead, form), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (to knead, form, shape) [source].
Words for the same roots include: dairy, dough, feign, feint, fiction, figment and figure in English [source].
The word dairy comes from Middle English daierie (dairy, pantry, dairy farm), from daie/dey (dairymaid), from Old English dǣġe (maker of bread, baker, dairy-maid), from Proto-Germanic *daigijǭ (kneader of bread, maid), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (to knead, form) [source].
The word lady has similar roots: from Middle English ladie (the mistress of servants; female head of a household, manor, etc), from Old English hlǣfdīġe (mistress of a household, wife of a lord, lady), from hlāf (bread, loaf) and dīġe (kneader), which is related to dǣġe (maker of dough/bread). So a lady was originally a “bread-kneader” [source].
Incidentally, dough is used as a slang term for money, as is bread . This is thought to have started during the 19th century. Bread was a traditional everyday necessity of life, and to earn one’s living was to earn one’s bread, or crust, so bread, and the dough it’s made from, became synonymous with money [source].
The use of bread as slang for money may also be linked to Cockney Rhyming Slang – bread and honey = money. This should not be confused with bread and butter = gutter, or bread and cheese = sneeze [source].
Ways to “to earn a living” or “to earn a crust” in Welsh include ennill eich bara menyn (to earn one’s bread and butter) and ennill eich bara a chaws (to earn one’s bread and cheese).
Are there interesting ways to say “to earn a living” in other languages?
Language Quiz
Mud Glorious Mud
If you live in a muddy place, or want to describe such a place, you could use the old word lutarious.
It means “of, pertaining to, or like, mud; living in mud”, and comes from the Latin word lutarius (of or belonging to the mud, living in mud), from lutum (mud, soil, dirt, mire, loam, clay), from Proto-Indo-European *lew- (dirt, mud) [source].
A related word is lutulent [ˈlʌtjʊlənt], which means pertaining to mud, or muddy.
Words for the same roots include:
- Albanian: llucë = thin or shallow mud, muddy place
- Portuguese: lodoso = muddy
- Romanian: lut = clay, loam, mud, dirt, lutos = clayey
- Spanish: lodo = mud, muck, mire, lodoso = muddy, boddy
Lutetia, the Gallo-Roman town founded in 52 BC that became Paris, gets it’s name from the Gaulish word *lutos (swamp), from Proto-Celtic *lutā (dirt, mud), from PIE *lew- (dirt, mud). It was known as Lutetia Parisiorum by the Romans. The Parisiorum part comes from Parīsiī, the Latin name for the Gaulish tribe who lived in the area. The name Paris comes from the same roots.
You can find more details on Radio Omniglot.
Incidentally, the French word boue [bu] (mud, dirt), also has Celtic roots: it comes from the Gaulish *bawā (mud, dirt), from Proto-Celtic *bowā (dirt, filth, excrement), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷewh₁- (excrement, dung) [source].
The Galician word bosta (dung, manure) comes from the same Celtic roots, as do the Welsh words baw (mud) and budr (dirty, filthy, vile, foul) [source].
The French word boue shouldn’t be confused with the Breton word boue [ˈbuː.e], which means buoy. It comes from Middle English boi(e) (buoy), from Middle Dutch boeye, from Old Dutch *bōcan, from Frankish *baukn (symbol, sign) from Proto-Germanic *baukną (sign, symbol), from PIE *bʰeh₂- (to glow, light, shine) [source].
By the way, do you pronounce buoy [bɔɪ] (boy) or [ˈbu.i] (boo-ee), or some other way?