Custard sandwiches and pancakes

By Simon

Sniglet - any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should

The Welsh word for sandwich is brechdan [ˈbrɛxdan], which comes from the Irish word brechtán (butter, fat), according to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.

However according to MacBain’s Dictionary, is related to the Scottish Gaelic word for pancake, breacag, which is related to breachdan (custard), which comes from the Middle Irish breachtán (a roll), which is related to the Welsh words brithog (mottled, variegated, multi-coloured, speckled, fine) and brith (marked with different colours, variegated, coloured, chequered, mottled, pied, spotted, speckled, brindled, grey), which are related to the word word breac (speckled) in Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

According to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, brechdan is a sandwich, and also a slice of bread and butter; sandwich; cake or shortbread.

There are also a number of interesting types of sandwich in Welsh:

– brechdan fawd / gorddi = slice of bread on which butter is spread with the thumb
– brechdan gaerog / ddwbl / linsi / fetal / deiliwr = an oatcake on a slice of buttered white bread or between two slices of white bread
– brechdan grasu = toast, toasted sandwich
– brechdan i aros pryd = slice of bread and butter to carry on with until the next meal, snack
– brechdan doddion = slice of bread spread with dripping
– brechdan driagl / driog = slice of bread spread with treacle

For details of the origins of the word sandwich, see Sandwiches and Portsmouths

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
les dentier dentures dannedd gosod
le chantier building site safle adeiladu
la dictature dictatorship unbennaeth; awtocratiaeth; teyrnlywodraeth
le dictateur dictator unben; teyrn
l’autocratie absolute dictatorship unbennaeth
une quinzaine; quine jours; deux semaines fortnight pythefnos
le dent de sagesse, le gros dent wisdom tooth cilddant olaf, cefnddant
poser sa candidature pour to apply for (a job) cynnig, ymgeisio, ymgynnig, gwneud cais
dépliant leaflet taflen; dalen
la disquette floppy disk disg llipa
déblie; allumé geek, nerd llipryn, gwlanen, brechdan
le monument classifié listed builing adeilad cofrestredig
le conseil d’administration board (of directors) bwrdd (cyfarwyddwyr)
l’affairiste; le magouiller wheeler dealer sgemiwr a sgiliwr
magouiller to wheel and deal sgemio a sgilio
mettre son nez partout to have a finger in every pie bod gan fys ym mhob brŵes/cawl
se mêler partout to have a finger in many pies bod gan fys ym mhob brŵes/cawl

Retronym

By Simon

I learnt an interesting word today – retronym – a new name for something that already existings that distinguishes the original from a more recent version. For example, ebooks are becoming increasingly popular, so there’s a need for a new word for non-ebooks. On the program I heard the word retronym, Word of Mouth, they suggested pbooks, paper books or printed books for the non-electronic version. Do you have any other suggestions?

They also discussed phones – since the default phone for most people these days is a mobile/cell phone, there’s a need to a different word for a non-mobile phone. Home phone or landline were suggested. Do you have other words?

For more information about retronyms, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retronyms

Waiter!

By Simon

When you’re in a restaurant or café, how do you get the attention of a waiter/waitress?

This cartoon shows how it can be difficult in France.

Garçon! Trying to get the waiter's attention

The customer in the cartoon first says “Please”, then “Sir/Mr”, then “Waiter”, then ‘Can I order?’, then a hour later the waiter finally speaks to him and says, “Sir, to stay here you must have something to eat or drink.”

What’s it like where you are? Are waiting staff in restaurants quick to respond to you, or do they go to great lengths to ignore you? What do you call waiting staff?

I’ve worked as a waiter and as a barman and know that at busy times it can be difficult to respond to everybody immediately, but I’ve never ignored anyone deliberately.

Image supplied by Frantastique, who can teach you how do you get the attention of a French waiter, and help you to learn French.

A’a

By Simon

One Hawaiian word that is used in English is a’a, which is defined as “a kind of rough-surface volcanic rock” [source].

However in Hawaiian it is written ʻaʻā, pronounced [ʔəˈʔaː] and means:

1. to burn, blaze, glow; fire; staring (eyes)
2. lava; stony, abounding with ʻaʻā lava
3. Sirius (the star)
4. young stage of damselfish

The word aʻa [əˈʔa] means:

1. small root, rootlet, vein, artery, nerve, tendon, muscle
2. to send greetings or love; joyous hospitality; joy at greeting a loved one

There is also ʻaʻa [ʔəˈʔa], which means:

1. to brave, dare, challenge, defy, check, venture; to accept a challenge; to volunteer; to act wickedly or presumptuously; bold, venturesome, valiant, intrepid
2. belt, girdle, waist; to gird, to tie on
3. bag, pocket, caul, envelope for a foetus, scrip; fiber from coconut husk; clothlike sheath at base of coconut frond; cloth; chaff, hull
4. a wind
5. booby bird

And ʻā.ʻā [ʔaː.ʔaː], which means:

1. dumbness, inability to speak intelligibly, a dumb person; dumb, silent, still; to stutter and stammer, as a dumb person
2. dwarf, small person; dwarfish, small
3. demented, panic-stricken
4. booby bird.
5. male ʻōʻō bird

Source: Hawaiian Dictionaries

This shows the importance of the ʻokina (“cutting”) and kahakō (“long mark”) in Hawaiian. The former represents a glottal stop [ʔ] and is a letter in Hawaiian, and the latter indicates a long vowel.

Jenga

By Simon

In the Bangor Community Choir last night we started learning a new song entitled Jenga by Juliet Russell. We were told that the song uses made-up words that don’t mean anything in particular, and it has no connection to the game of Jenga.

One of my friends thought the word jenga might mean something like ‘to build’ in Swahili, so I thought I’d investigate.

Jenga does indeed mean to construct or build in Swahili [source], and the as the inventor of the game, Leslie Scott, grew up in East Africa speaking English and Swahili, it is likely that the name of the game comes from that Swahili word.

Related words include:

– jengo = building
– mjenzi = builder
– ujenzi = architecture; construction, installation

Source: Online Swahili – English Dictionary

Sniglets

By Simon

Sniglet - any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should

I learned an interesting new word from the radio yesterday – sniglet – which is defined as “any word that doesn’t appear in the dictionary, but should”.

It was apparently popularized by the comedian/actor Rich Hall while he was working on Not Necessarily the News, an HBO comedy series from the 1980s, who has also published a number of collections of sniglets [source].

Examples include:

  • Aquadextrous: possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap / faucet with the toes
  • Blamestorming: sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.
  • Egosurf: to search for yourself on Google or another search engine
  • Ohnosecond: that very short moment in time during which you realize that you have pressed the wrong key and deleted hours, days, or weeks of work.
  • Percussive maintenance: the fine art of whacking the crap of of an electronic device to get it to work again.
  • Treeware: documents made out of paper, as opposed to electronic documents.

Here are some collections of sniglets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniglet
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Sniglet-term.htm
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Sniglet-Words-that-should-be-in-the-dictionary-but-arent