Pongiste Whiff-Whaff

By Simon

Yesterday I came across a wonderful word – pongiste – which is apparently what a table tennis player is called in French.

There is a simliar word in English – ping-pongist – which refers to “one who plays or is enthusiastic about ping pong”. It’s marked as dated and rare, and I’ve never come across it before. Have you?

Table tennis was originally played as an after-dinner game by the upper classes in the 19th century Victorian England. Versions of the game were also played by British military officers in India in the 1860s and 1870s.

The name ping-pong, which is of omomatopoeic origin, was trademarked in 1901 by J. Jaques & Son Ltd, a British manufacturer of table tennis equipment, and came to be used to refer to the game. They sold the rights to the name to Parker Brothers in the 1920s, and it was trademarked in the USA in 1930. Parker Brothers still own the trademark.

Another name for the game, whiff-whaff, was coined by Slazenger & Sons in 1900. Apparently whiff-whaff also means “the breathy sound of something rushing quickly; whoosh”.

In South Lancashire dialect, whiff-whaff can mean “nonsense, words or deeds of little import” or “unnecessary items or additions” [source].

IMG_7816_DxO

Sources: Wiktionary, Wikipedia

Myrtle Corner

By Simon

Yesterday I went to Liverpool for an MRI scan, which was a rather noisy and uncomfortable experience that seemed to go on forvever. It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic, as there’s not much space in the scanner. I amused myself by imagining that the sounds of the scanner were music, and tried to work how many beats each one had and its pitch.

The scan was looking at my hemangioma, the benign tumour that makes my lower lip and tongue rather misshapen and swollen, and extends elsewhere – the scan will show where exactly. Perhaps I’ll write / talk more about that at another time.

Anyway, part of my journey on the train took me along the Wirral Line, which runs between Chester and Liverpool, and there are some interesting placenames along there that I thought I’d investigate.

The Wirral is a peninsula between the River Dee and the River Mersey. The name wirral [ˈwɪɹəl], which was first recorded as Wirhealum / Wirheale in early 10th century, means “(Place at) the nook(s) where bog-myrtle grows” or “myrtle corner”. It comes from the Old English wīr (myrtle) + halh (corner) [source], and the area was apparently once overgrown with bog myrtle (myrica gale).

The name Mersey apparently means “boundary river”, and comes from the Old English mære(s) (boundary) and ea (river) [source]. While Dee, as in the River Dee, comes from the old Brythonic word dēvā (River of the Goddess / Holy River), which was also what the Romans called Chester. The River Mersey was possibly once the boundary between the Kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, and the River Dee marked the border of the Kingdom of Gwynedd.

Dazzle Ferry

Another place along the way is Wallasey, a name that comes from the Old English walha (stranger, foreigner) and -ey (island, area of dry land). The word Wales also comes from walha, so Wallasey could mean ‘the island of strangers / foreigners / Welsh people’.

40 Days

By Simon

I learnt last night that the word quarantine, as in “a restriction on the movement of people and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests”, comes from Venetian word meaning forty, quarantina, which comes from quarantina giorni (forty days). Quarantina comes from quaranta (forty), from the Latin quadrāgintā (forty).

During the 14th and 15th centuries there were several outbreaks of the bubonic plague in Europe. At that time there was a practise of requiring ships to wait for a period of time before entering Venice or Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia), which was ruled by Venice at the time. Initally the crew and passengers had to wait 30 days on their ships or on nearby islands. This period was extended to 40 days by the Venetian Senate in 1448.

Sources: Wiktionary & Wikipedia

Fish Kettles

By Simon

If you said that something was “a different kettle of fish” or “another kettle of fish”, you would mean that it’s something else altogether, and very different to what you have been discussing. At least in the UK.

This expression dates from the late 19th century, and is/was most common in Scotland and northern England. Before then, fish kettles featured in the phrase “a pretty kettle of fish”, which means “a muddle or awkward state of affairs”.

A fish kettle (see below) is type of long saucepan used since the 17th century to poach fish, especially large fish like salmon.

Fish Kettle

Appartently in the USA you might say that it’s “quite another story”, “a whole different story”, “a different ball game” or “a horse of a different color. Are there others?

Equivalents of these idioms in French include “c’est une autre paire de manches” (it’s another pair of sleeves”) and “c’est une toute autre histoire” (it’s a whole other story). Do you know of others in French or other languages?

Sources: Reverso, The Phrase Finder

The Secret Language of Basses

By Simon

I sing bass in several choirs, and quite a few of the bass parts involve us going dm dm dm, or do do do, or something similar. Until recently I thought it was just meaningless sounds we were making, and that maybe the composers / arrangers of the songs just couldn’t be bothered to write words for us basses.

Now I can exclusively reveal here that I have uncovered the Secret Language of Basses. They are not in fact meaningless sounds, but actually hidden messages in Morse Code.

Alternatively they might be in a secret constructed language known only to a few composers.

Fancy some cuddle-me-buff?

By Simon

According to an episode of the podcast Something Rhymes with Purple, the expression cuddle-me-buff is slang for beer, although why is uncertain.

According to Word and Phrases from the Past, cuddle-me-buff is a Derbyshire dialect terms for an intoxicating liquor.

Another interest word in Derbyshire dialect is swilkerin’, or to drink tea from a saucer [source].

According to QI, cuddle-me-buff is a Yorkshire dialect term for beer.

There are some other more common slang words for intoxicating beverages, such as booze and hoo(t)ch. Do you know others?

Drawing and Dragging

By Simon

The word withdrawal comes from withdraw, which, according to Wiktionary, means,

  1. To pull back, aside or away
  2. To stop talking to, or interacting with, other people and start thinking thoughts that are not related to what is happening around.
  3. To take back (a comment, etc).

… and a few other things.

It comes from the Middle English word withdrawen (to draw away, to draw back), from with (away, back), and drawen (to draw, drag, pull), which comes from the Old English draġan (to draw, pull, attract), from the Proto-Germanic *draganą (to draw, pull, carry), from the Proto-Indo-European *dʰregʰ- (to pull, draw, drag). The word drag comes from the same root source].

King James' Drawing Room

The term withdrawing room, a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, dates from the 17th century, and was later abbreviated to drawing room. In some households there was a tradition until about the mid-20th century, that after a formal dinner, the ladies would withdraw to the drawing room, while the gentlemen remained in the dinning room to talk about things like politics, perhaps while smoking and drinking port or other beverages. After a respectable interval the gentlemen would join the ladies in the drawing room [source].

The modern equivalent of the drawing room might be called the living room in some houses, or perhaps the lounge. We called it the sitting room in the house I grew up in. What do you call it?

With as a prefix can mean: against or in opposition to, as in withstand. In withhold and withdraw it means back, back around, in reverse” or in return. The are other words with the with prefix, such as withbear (to carry/bear away, gather, endure), withgo (to go against, give up), withgang (to indulge), and withjoin (to rebuke, withold, withstand), but they are obsolete and archaic [source].