Laxness

By Simon

During the days between Christmas and New Year things may seem a bit more lax than usual, so I thought I’d look into the origins of the word.

lazy

Lax means lenient and allowing for deviation, not strict, loose, not tight or taut, lacking care, neglectful or negligent. It comes from the Latin laxus (wide, roomy, loose), from Proto-Indo-European *slǵ-so (weak, faint) [source].

The English word leash comes from the same roots, via the Middle English lesse (a leash for holding a coursing hound or watchdog) [source], the Old French lesse (leash, lead), and the Latin laxā (thong, a loose cord), from laxus [source].

The English word lease also comes from the same roots, at least partly: from Middle English *lesen, the Anglo-Norman lesser/lasier (to let, let go), from Latin laxō (to loose) from laxus, and partly from Old High German lāzan (to let, let go, release) [source].

Related words in other languages include laks (lax, slack) in Dutch, lâche (loose, slack, coward(ly), low, lazy) in French, lax (lax, easy, loose) in Geman, and llaes (loose, slack, free, trailing, flowing, low) in Welsh [source].

Decals

By Simon

Are you familiar with decals? Or maybe, like me, you call them stickers.

Sitckers / Decals
One of my ukulele cases with some stickers on it

Whatever you call them, they are “a design or picture produced in order to be transferred to another surface either permanently or temporarily.” or in other words, a decorative sticker. Apparently decal can be used as a verb as well, meaning to apply decals to (sth) [source].

I’ve come across the word decal in novels and other texts by American writers, but I hadn’t heard anybody use it in speech. Yesterday I watched a video made by a Canadian woman in Japan in which she talks about decals, and pronounces it [ˈdɛkəl] (deckle). This surprised me as I assumed it was pronounced more like [ˈdiː.kæl] (dee-cal).

Apparently, both pronunciations are used: [ˈdiː.kæl] in central Canada and Australia, and [ˈdɛkəl] in the USA, western Canada and Australia. If you use this word, how do you pronounce it, and where are you from?

Decal is an abbreviation of decalcomania (The process of transferring decorative designs onto surfaces using decals; a decal), from French décalcomanie (same meaning), décalquer (to trace, transfer [a design]), and -manie (a compulsion, obsession, a place where something can be found in great amounts).

A word that possibly comes from the same root is cockamamie, which means a foolish or ridiculous person; ridiculousness, folly or foolish nonsense; foolish, ill-considered, silly, unbelievable, triffling, and used to mean a decal [source].

Are there any words that aren’t pronounced as you’d expect based on their written forms?

Goosnargh

By Simon

What does the word goosnargh suggest to you?

Gertie and Bertie
A couple of geese that I encountered unexpectedly when walking around Bangor.

When I first came across this word the other day, I guessed it might be an exclamation you make when encountering an unexpected goose. Goosnargh!

The Village, Goosnargh.

Somewhat disappointingly, Goosnargh [ˈɡuːznər] is in fact a village between Broughton and Longridge in the City of Preston district of Lancashire in the northwest of England, not far from where I grew up. It’s apparently famous for its Goosnargh cakes, a type of caraway seed shortcake biscuit traditionally sold at Whitsun (the seventh Sunday after Easter).

Here’s a recipe: https://bakingforbritain.blogspot.com/2005/09/goosnargh-cakes-from-lancashire.html

The name comes the Old Irish name Gosan or Gusan and the Old Norse word erg (hill pasture), which is thought to come from the Old Irish áirge (a place for milking cows). Alternatively, it might come from the Old Norse gudhsins hörgi (“at the idol’s (god’s) temple”). Goosnargh appears in the Domesday Book as Gusansarghe, and by 1212 it had changed to Gosenargh.

Áirge became áirí (milking-place, herd (of cows), ground manured in previous year; ground from which potatoes have been cropped) in Irish, àirigh [aːrʲɪ] (hill pasture, bothy, sheiling, pastoral summer residence, sheiling (knitting pattern)) in Scottish Gaelic, and eairee (hill pasture, shieling) in Manx. The Faorese word ærgi [ˈaɹt͡ʃɪ] (a pasture for cattle to graze over the summer with a hut where the people tending them live meanwhile; a shieling, saeter) also come from the same roots.

According to Douglas Adams in his novel In So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, goosnargh is a Betelgeusian word used by Ford Prefect “when he knew he should say something but didn’t know what it should be.”

However, in The Meaning of Liff, in which Douglas Adams’ gives comic meanings to British place names, goosnargh is defined as “Something left over from preparing or eating a meal, which you store in the fridge despite the fact that you know full well you will never ever use it.”

I certainly have a few goosnarghs (leftovers) in my fridge. How about you?

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goosnargh
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goosnargh
https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/áirí
https://www.faclair.com/

Shopping for Grasshoppers

By Simon

Have you ever been grassed up or grassed on?

In the UK, to grass someone up or to grass on someone means to betray them to the police or other authorities, and a grass is an informer who betrays a group (of criminals or other ne’er-do-wells) to the police. It’s also used to mean telling on someone to a figure of authority, such as a boss, teacher or parent [source].

Grasshoppers

Grass in these senses is probably a shortening of grasshopper, which is rhyming slang for copper (police officer), as in someone who will inform on you to the police, and/or rhyming slang for shopper, i.e. one who ‘shops’ you to the authorities [source].

A grasshopper is also:

  • a mostly herbivorous insect of the order Orthoptera.
  • A cocktail made with crème de menthe and optionally with crème de cacao.
  • A young student in initial stages of training who has been chosen on account of their obvious talent. [source]

Other words for an informant apparently include: bigmouth, canary, fink, gossip, leak, mole, nark, quisling, sneak, snitch, snout, squealer, stooge, stool pigeon, stoolie, tattler, tattletale, telltale tit, telltale, tout and whistleblower [source].

Do you use any of these, or are there others you know/use?

Are there interesting words for informants in other languages?

Titles

By Simon

Titles like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, etc are commonly and widely used, but have you heard of Mx?

Saturday

I hadn’t heard of it until yesterday when I listened to an episode of the Subtitle podcast all about it.

Mx [mɪks/məks] is a gender-neutral alternative to Mr, Mrs and Ms. The x was chosen as a “wildcard” character, and it was first used in print in 1977 in Single Parent, and American magazine. It is usually written Mx. in the USA and Mx in the UK. It was added to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary in 2016, although is not widely used in the USA. [source].

The first major organisation to acccept its use in documents was the UK Post Office in 2009. Since then many other companies and organisations have accepted it, at least in the UK [source].

More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mx_(title)

An alternative gender-neutral title is apparently M. [ɛm], although it is rarely used [source]. Several other alternative gender-neutral titles are discussed on https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Gender_neutral_titles – apparently Mx is the most widely used.

The title Ms(.) has been around since the 17th century as an abbreviation of mistress, which does not indicate marital status. It was revived in 1901, based on Southern dialects of English in the USA which pronounced both Mrs and Miss as [mɪz]. Ms started to become popular in the 1970s after Ms. magazine was founded [source].

More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms.

I generally avoid using titles or even names when talking to people, unless they ask me to do so, and prefer to be addressed simply as Simon. If I had a fancy title like Dr, Professor or Sir, I might ask people to use them, at least sometimes. Sir Simon has a nice ring to it. I also rather like Japanese titles like san and chan.

How about you?