Noce

By Simon

Noce /nɔs/ is a French word I learnt last night meaning “wedding” (ceremony) or wedding party. Here are some examples of usage:

– être de la noce – to be (a member) of the wedding party, to be among the wedding guests
– être de noce – to be invited to a wedding
– aller à la noce de quelqun – to go to somebody’s wedding
– repas/robe/nuit de noce – wedding banquet/dress/night
– noce d’argent / d’or etc – silver/golden wedding
– fare la noce – to live it up / have a wild time
– il n’était pas à la noce – he wasn’t enjoying himself / was have an uncomfortable time
– il n’avait jamais été à pareille noce – he’d never been so happy / he was having the time of his life

Noce, sounds like the Welsh word for night nos, so when I first heard it I thought nights and not weddings were being discussed. It comes from the Latin word nuptiae (wedding/marriage), which is derived from nubere (to veil/hide) – this goes back to a Roman custom that married women wore veils. Nuptiae is also the root of the English word nuptial (to marry; to speak of a wedding; wedding), and of the French word nuage (cloud).

An alternative to noce is mariage, which can refer both to the institution of marriage and the marriage/wedding ceremony. The English word wedding comes from the Old English węddian (to wed), while marriage comes from the French mariage.

eGalile

By Simon

One of the songs we’ve been singing in the Bangor Community Choir recently is a Zulu one from South Africa called eGalile. The words are:

eGalile, eGalile
sohlangana eGalile

washo uJesu
kuba fundi bakhe
sohlangana eGalile

My knowledge of Zulu is very limited and I’m not sure all the words are written correctly, but with help from online Zulu dictionary, I cobbled together the following translation:

In Galilee, In Galilee
I say we will meet in Galilee

Jesus said
To his assembled disciples
We will meet in Galilee

As far as I can tell, this is based on a passage from the Bible (Matthew, 28:10) – “Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”

Can any of you provide a better translation, or other information about this song?

Here’s a recording of the song from YouTube

The first part isn’t quite the same as we sing in the community choir, but the rest is.

Ductus

By Simon

I came across the word ductus today in an interesting article about the origins of the writing. The articles focuses particularly on the development of the Latin/Roman alphabet and traces it’s origins back to ancient Egypt.

Ductus /ˈdʌktəs/ means:

1. the number of strokes that make up a written letter, and the direction, sequence and speed in which they are written
2. a subtle reduction of weight towards the middle of the stroke of the letter
3. (medicine) a duct, tube or canal in the body

Etymology: from Latin, perfect passive participle of dūcō (to lead), from the Proto-Indo-European root *deuk- (to lead), which is also the root of duct, and duke, via the Old French duc and the Latin dux

[Sources: wiktionary and myEtymology.com]

The article uses it in the second sense when talking about how letters shapes have changed and been simplified over time.

The first sense could be used when talking about Chinese Hanzi / Japanese Kanji / Korean Hanja, as the direction and sequence of strokes used to write such characters is fixed and has to be memorised when learning them, and the number of strokes is used to order them in dictionaries and indices.

Incidentally, I’ve just added a page about the Proto-Sinaitic / Proto-Canaanite script , one of the earliest alphabetic scripts, and one of the scripts mentioned in the article.

Hen’s nests and potholes

By Simon

Nid de poule

One French expression that came up last night was nid-de-poule (hen’s nest), which sounds much more interesting than it’s English equivalent, pothole.

The English word pothole can refer to a number of things, including:

– a hole formed in rock by stones in water or glacial erosion;
– underground passages, shafts and chambers formed by water erosion;
– a pond formed by water collecting in a natural hollow (mainly in North American English)
– a shallow hole dug in the ground while prospecting (mainly in Australia)
– a depression or hollow in a road or track
[source]

Another French word for the kind of pothole that occurs in road is fondrière, from fondre (to melt), while the kind of pothole found underground is a caverne, grotte or gouffre. The French equivalent of potholing is spéléologie and a spéléleogue / spéléo (potholer) is said to faire de la spéléologie (to go potholing), an activity known as spelunking or caving in American English. The word speleology is also used to some extent in English and comes, via the French spéléleogue and Latin spēlæum, from the Greek σπήλαιον (spí̱laion – cave) plus λογία (logia). The adjective spelaean means ‘cave-dwelling’.

The word potholing apparently originated in the north of England and refers to the act of exploring potholes, which in this case refers to vertical caves.

Do any of you go caving / potholing / spelunking? If you do, what do you call it?

Are there interesting words for potholes (in roads) in other languages?

上海闲话 (Shanghainese)

By Simon

According to an article I came across today, the local government in Shanghai is trying to preserve Shanghainese, the variety of Wu spoken in Shanghai. This involves recording people who speak ‘pure’ Shanghainese talking about local legends and traditions, etc. This is the third time such a project has been attempted, and they hope to find more speakers of ‘true’ Shanghainese this time – something they didn’t manage before.

Similar projects are underway in other parts of China, such as Jiangsu and Yunnan, to preserve other regionalects/languages. The plan is to compile a national database of regional languages and dialects.

This initiative marks a reversal of the government policy of the 1990s when there was a campaign to encourage people to speak Mandarin rather than Shanghainese in Shanghai. The use of Shanghainese was banned in schools and the number of Shanghainese programmes on the radio and TV fell dramatically. As a result, relatively few children speak Shanghainese and those who do don’t speak it very well, Mandarin became the main language for many people in Shanghai, and Shanghainese became stigmatised.

Recently the situation has changed somewhat with the publication of a Shanghainese dictionary, a regular and popular newpaper column, and music and stand-up comedy in Shanghainese [source].

Do you speak Shanghainese or are you studying it?

Batter

By Simon

In the recipe I used today to make some cacen siocled (chocolate cake), the word used to describe the result of mixing all the ingredients together is batter, at least in the English translation of the recipe. This is something I would call mixture – for me batter is a mixture of flour, water and a bit of salt that is used to coat fish before deep frying it. It sounds a bit strange to call cake mixture batter, though I have come across this usage from time to time, often in American recipes.

The word batter was first recorded in the late 14th century and comes from the Old French word batteure (a beating), from the Latin battuere (to beat, strike), and via Gaulish from Proto-Indo-European base *bhau- (to strike), which is also the root of buttock, butter, butt in English, via the Frankish *bōtan, the French word bouter (end, tip, butt, nub), and the Spanish botar (to bounce).

What does batter mean to you?

Shotgun, dibs and bagsy

By Simon

An expression I noticed recently was “Shotgun!“, as used as an exclamation to claim the front passenger seat of a car. According to the Urban Dictionary, back in the days of the wild west in America when people travelled by stagecoach, the seat next to the driver was usually occupied by a man with a shotgun who was there to protect the travellers and their valuables. He was said to be ‘riding shotgun’, the word shotgun became associated with the seat next to the driver.

According to The Straight Dope, the term ‘riding shotgun’ was first used in stories about the wild west rather than in the wild west itself – the term ‘shotgun guard’ was used though. The earliest usage of the expression in relation to stage coaches appears in an issue of the Washington Post’s “Magazine of Fiction” from 27th March 27 1921 in a story called “The Fighting Fool” by Dane Coolidge, and it was first used to refer to the front passenger seat in cars in the 1950s.

Shotgun is used mainly in American English, as far as I’m aware. If I wanted to lay claim in a similar way I might say “bagsy the front seat”. Bagsy (/ˈbagzi/) can also be used to unofficially reserve many other things for oneself, e.g. “Bagsy the sofa/chair/remote control/etc.” Variations on bagsy include bags, bagsie, begsie, bugsy and dibs, and I’m sure you’ll tell me about others. You might also say things like, “I’ll bag the best seats”.

The origins of bagsy and dibs are uncertain, but a number of theories are discussed on Wikipedia.