De-risking and de-scaling

By Simon

The other day I heard a discussion on the radio (BBC Radio 4) in which the words de-risk and de-scale, cropped up. They caught my attention because I hadn’t come across them before.

The context was the UK Sports Minister talking about the London Olympics, and he said, “As the project moves on it de-risks and de-scales.” I took this to mean that the size and risks involved in the project are reduced as it proceeds. I’m not sure if the Minister made them up on the spot, or if he’d heard them or read them somewhere.

De-risk gets 310 results in Google, and derisk gets only 29. De-scale and descale get 5 and 6 results respectively. So it seems these words aren’t all that common. Have you heard them before?

Stookies, stucco and stalks

By Simon

I heard the word stookie on the radio the other day as was mystyfied as the it’s meaning – the context didn’t help. Forunately the person who mentioned it explained that it’s a Scottish word for plaster cast – the kind of thing you might have on a limb if you facture a bone. It’s also mention in this story on the BBC News site.

The Urban Dictionary provides this example of usage, Gonnae let me right a menshie oan yer stookie? (Are you going to let me write graffiti on your plaster cast?).

Wikitionary defines stookie as: plaster of Paris; plaster cast; (dialect) idiot; (dialect) shy person, and it apparently comes from stucco plus the diminutive suffix -ie.

Stucco comes from Italian, and means “stucco or plaster”, which comes from the Lombardic *stucki (crust, fragment, piece), from the Proto-Germanic *stukjan, *stukjaz, *stukō, *stūkō (stick, beam, stump), from the Proto-Indo-European *stAug- (stalk).

To me a stookie sounds like a more friendly thing to have on your arm or leg than a plaster cast, which is also known as a orthopedic or surgical cast. What do you think?

Les courses

By Simon

I discovered yesterday that French equivalents of ‘to go shopping’ or ‘to do the shopping’ are faire des courses or faire les commissions, which also mean ‘to run errands’. These expressions were new to me because when in French I’ve either stayed with families or in hotels and have never had to do or talk about such activities.

According to Reverso (to go) shopping (for food/groceries) is (faire) les courses, but shopping as a leisure activity is le shopping. In English you might say, ‘I am doing the shopping’ = I am shopping for food/groceries, but ‘I love shopping’ might refer to the leisure aspect of the activity. Do you make this distinction?

Related expressions include:
– partir faire les magasins = to go on a shopping expedition/trip
– les courses alimentaires = food shopping
– liste des courses = shopping list
– achat en ligne = online shopping
– centre commercial = shopping arcade / precinct / centre / mall
– sac/panier à provisions = shopping bag/basket
– caddie (m) = shopping trolley / cart
– faire du lèche-vitrines = to go window shopping
– faire ses cadeaux de Noël = to do one’s Christmas shopping

One way to practise languages you’re learning is to use them to write shopping lists. I usually write mine in Welsh.

Déménager

By Simon

In French if you want to talk about movement in general you use bouger, but for moving house you use déménager. The other day a friend pointed out that the root of déménager is ménage (housework, housekeeping, household, married couple), as in ménage à trois, from the Old French manage, from manoir (manor, country house), from the Latin manere (manner, fashion, way).

Déménager can also mean to leave, get lost, clear out, to be crazy, and related words include:

– emménager = to move in (to a house)
– un deménageur = furniture mover
– un deménagement = removal, moving
– déménager à la cloche de bois = to sneak off in the middle of the night
– Ça déménage ! = It’s great/brilliant!

As well as déménager, there are a few other French words for movement:

– bouger, remuer = to move (general)
– évoluer = to move (events, politics)
– circuler = to move, circulate (traffic); move along (get out of the way)
– avancer = to move (vehicle), advance, move along/forward
– voyager = to move about (from place to place), travel
– se déplacer = to move about (in a room or house)
– s’éloigner, s’en aller = to move off
– se pousser = to move over

Sources: Reverso, french.about.com, Wiktionary

Today and tomorrow

By Simon

Yesterday a friend asked me about the origins of the words today and tomorrow, and whether the to- part of them was orginally the. You sometimes come across expressions like ‘on the morrow’, and words appear with hypens in older texts: to-day and to-morrow.

According to the OED, today comes from the Old English tó dæg – the dæg part means day and the tó part means “at/in/during (a time), or on (a day). Tomorrow comes from to morȝen or to morwen – the morrow part means morning.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, today comes from the Old English todæge or to dæge (on (the) day), and Tomorrow comes from the middle English to morewe, from the Old English to morgenne (on (the) morrow), with morgenne being the dative of morgen (morning). They were written as two words until 16th century, then hypenated until the early 20th century.

In German (der) Morgen means morning, and morgen means tomorrow, and tomorrow morning is morgen früh or morgen vormittag, not morgen Morgen!

In French the word for today, aujourd’hui, comes from the expression au jour d’hui (on the day of today) – hui comes from the Latin hŏdĭē (today), a contraction of hŏc diē (this day). The Italian word for today, oggi, comes from the same root, and the expression al giorno d’oggi (nowadays, these days, today) has the same structure as aujourd’hui, though hasn’t replaced oggi as aujourd’hui has replaced hui in French. The Spanish and Portuguese words for today, hoy and hoje, also come from the same root and are used without embellishment. The Romanian word for today, astăzi, comes from a different root though – the Latin ista die (that day).

Sources: Wiktionnaire, Wikizionario, Wikcionario, Wikcionário & Wikționar.

Mandarin v English

By Simon

I came across an interesting article about the relative importance of Mandarin and English in South East Asia today. It talks about children from Malaysia being sent to school in Singapore because their parents want them to be fluent in English – schools in Malaysia teach in Malay, while those in Singapore teach in English. The parents believe that the standard of English used in Malaysia has declined significantly since the 1980s, when Malay had become the main language used in Malay schools, and they think the fluency in English is important for the children’s future.

Meanwhile in Singapore Mandarin is becoming increasingly important as more and more business is done with China. However English remains an important language. The article suggests that while both Mandarin and English are useful, English is a dominant position in terms of culture (music, movies, etc).

In Vietnam there is apparently a resistance to learning Mandarin and many people prefer to learn English and do business with the USA.