Promenades, walks and rides

By Simon

In French the word promenade (f) /pʀɔm.nad/ can mean a walk: une promenade à pied; a drive: une promenade en voiture, or a (bicycle / horse / sleigh) ride: une promenade à velo / à cheval / en traîneau. You can also talk about going on une promenade en mer / en bateau (a boat trip), or if you going for une promenade à pied, you might follow un sentier de promenade (a footpath) with un sac à dos de promenade (daysack) on your back.

The verb that goes with promenade is faire (to do), so you might say je vais faire une promenade à velo = I’m going for a bike ride. Alternatively the verb (se) promener can be used to mean to go for a walk, ride or drive, and if it’s your fingers or gaze that are going the wandering, the construction to use is se promener sur.

Promenade comes from promener (to walk), from the Latin promenare (to drive (animals) onward) from prō (forth) plus minare (to drive (animals) with shouts), from minari (to threaten), from minae (threats), from the Proto-Indo-European root *men-.

In English promenade originally, in the 16th century, meant “a leisurely walk (ride or drive), especially one taken in a public place so as to meet or be seen by others.” and then was used to refer specifically to a place for taking a such a walk by the sea.

Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary, OED, myEtymology.com, Wiktionary

Striggles, sniggles and squiggles

By Simon

I came across the word striggle /ˈstrɪg(ə)l/ – a wavy line, while looking for something else in the OED. It’s a portmanteau of straggle and wiggle, and it caught my attention because I hadn’t encountered it before, and because it appeals to me.

Other words that look and sound like they’re related include squiggle (to work wavy or intricate embroidery, to squirm or wriggle, squirm); sniggle (to wriggle, crawl, creep stealthily; a snigger or snicker), and wriggle (to twist or turn the body about with short writhing movements; to move sinuously; to writhe, squirm, wiggle). The etymology of these is uncertain and they are perhaps of imitative origin, though apparently wriggle comes from the (Middle) Low German wriggeln, which comes from wriggen (to twist or turn).

Does the -iggle part of these words suggest anything to you in terms of size, shape, or other qualities?

Ordinosore

By Simon

Ordinosore is an interesting French word I came across today in an article in The Guardian. It combines ordinateur (computer) and dinosaur and means an out-of-date computer – the laptop I’m writing this on is only three years old, but is already a bit of an ordinosore.

The article mentions le Festival XYZ, an annual event started in 2002 by Éric Donfu to celebrate new words in French and to breath life into the language.

Other words from the festival include:
– phonard – someone who is always on their mobile phone (pejorative)
– bonjoir – a combination of bonjour (good day) and bonsoir (good evening) used at around midday
– attachiant(e) – a combination of attachant (captivating, endearing) and chiant (annoying) that means someone you cannot live with but cannot live without
– bête seller -a particularly awful literary work that becomes an instant hit (bête = stupid, silly).

Are there similar words or festivals in other languages / countries?

Swot!

By Simon

In British English the word swot (/swɒt/) means to study or work hard – you might swot for your exams if you’re a swot (someone who works/studies hard). You might also swot up on something. Calling someone a swot, or a little swot, can be a kind of insult, perhaps with undertones of envy or even guilt – you might think that you should really be swotting as well.

According to the OED swot, or swat, is a dialect variant of sweat and originated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Surrey, where William Wallace, a Scottish professor of mathematics, apparently once said, ‘It mades one swot’ (= sweat), and it first appeared in print in 1850.

Other words with the same or similar meanings include to mug up on, to bone up on, and to cram for. Cramming isn’t quite the same as swotting though, as it usually involves trying to fit as much knowledge into your head as you can in a relatively short in preparation for an exam or test. Swotting can mean this, and can also mean doing all the work / study you’re given, and perhaps more than that – i.e. making more effort than strictly necessary – something that some people prefer not to be accused of.

Are there words in American English or other varieties of English with similar connotations to swot?

In French the word for a swot is bachoteur(-euse), and to swot (for an exam) is potasser (un examen) – do these have any of the connotations of swot?

Handwriting and typing Cyrillic

By Simon

I finally finished learning the handwritten cursive version of the Cyrillic alphabet for Russian today – I’ve been learning it a few letters at a time, so it has taken a while. Now I can write down the Russian words and phrases I’m learning more easily – writing the printed versions of the letters seems decidedly awkward to me. I might even investigate Russian calligraphy.

Now I just need to map my fingers to the Russian keyboard layout so that I can type Russian as well, instead of picking the letters one at a time from BabelMap, as I’ve been doing. I just found an online typing tutor that helps you learn various keyboard layouts for English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. There’s a similar site with even more keyboard layouts here.

After many years of trial and error, I can touch type English fairly well, and type the other Western European languages I know as well. I can also type Chinese using pinyin, and Japanese using romaji. When typing Czech though (not something I do very often), I get accented letters like ě, č, ů and ž from BabelMap.

When learning a new language, especially a new alphabet, do you usually learn how to type it?

Книга

By Simon

Книга /’kniga/ is a Russian word for book, and also appears in other Slavic languages: кніга in Belarusian, книга in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Ukrainian, knjiga in Croatian and Slovenian, kniha in Czech, knéga in Kashubian, kъńiga (book, character, writing) in Old Church Slavonic, książka in Polish, and књига in Serbian.

It apparently comes from the Proto-Slavic *kъniga, from Old Turkic *küinig, from the Bulgaric Turkic *küiniv, from the Uyghur kuin, kuinbitig (book-spool/scroll), possibly from the Chinese 經 (jīng in Mandarin, *kˤeŋ in Old Chinese = classics, sacred book, scripture). It is possibly also related to:

Armenian: kniќ (slab, letter)
Assyrian: kuniku (slab, document)
Hungarian: könyv (book)
Korean: 권 (kwen – book)
Mordvin: końov (paper)
Sumerian: kunukku (seal, stamp)

If all these words are indeed related, it’s possible that they come from a common source – maybe Chinese, as paper was invented in China in about the 1st century AD, and books sometime after that. Are there any similar words in other languages?

La douce lueur du crépuscule

By Simon

Yesterday I discovered that there are many ways to express the concept of soft in French, depending on the context.

Doux (douce) (/du/, /duːs/), from the Latin dulcis (soft, smooth, pleasant), is used for:
– soft (not rough) skin, hands, hair, fur, silk, towels, fabric or texture
– soft (gentle) lights, colours, curves, lines, breezes and rain;
– soft (not loud) voices, music and voices
– soft (not hard) water
– soft (easy) life

For example
– la douce lueur du crépuscule (the soft glow of the evening light)
– Sa voix se fit plus douce (Her voice grew softer)

mou (molle) (/mu/, /mɔl/), from the Latin mollis (soft), is used for:
– soft (not hard) ground, snow, butter, bread

tendre (/tɑ̃dʁ/), is used for
– soft (not hard) wood
– soft (kind) heart

douillet(te) (/dujɛ/) and moelleux(-euse) (/mwɛ.lø/) are used for:
soft (not hard) beds, cushions and pillows

Douillet is also used to mean soft, as in not physically tough.

indulgent(e) (/ɛ̃dylʒɑ̃/) is used to mean lenient / soft.

If you have a soft spot for someone you could say, ‘j’ai un faible pour qn’.

To say someone is soft in the sense that they’re emotionally sensitive, the word is sensible (/sɑ̃sibl(ə)/). For example, Ne sois pas si douillet!, Ne sois pas si sensible! = Don’t be so soft!