The word blithering came up today in a comedy show I was listening to and this got me wondering about it’s origins.
It’s normally accompanied by idiot, as in blithering idiot, and means:
Blithering comes from blither (to talk nonsense), which is a variant of blather, which is a Scots word probably from the Old Norse blaðra (chatter, babble) blaðr (nonsense).
A correspondent would like to know the Romanian equivalent of the tag questions like n’est-ce pas? (French), non e vero? (Italian), ¿verdad? (Spanish), ne pravda? (Czech).
I found nu-i asa? via Google translate, and this brings up over 3 million results in Google, so might just be correct.
Do other languages use similar tags?
I heard today that a new journal on writing systems, Writing Systems Research, was launched recently and sounds very interesting. The first issue includes articles on the evolution of writing, and literacy, and is can be read online for free.
Are there any other journals that focus specifically on writing systems or written language?
galapagar, (noun, m) – sitio donde abundan los galápagos (a place abounding in tortoises).
I heard of this word today and it particularly appealed to me for its very specific meaning. It seems to be rare and doesn’t appear in any of my Spanish dictionaries, though it does appear in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española.
Related words include:
One of my friends sent out an email this week to announce that he will be “at home” (to visitors) on Sunday afternoon, meaning that he’s putting on a party.
One definition of “at home” in my English dictionary is, “giving an informal party at one’s own home”, and “an at home” can refer to such a party. This is apparently a British usage and not a very common one.
Is this expression or something similar used in other English-speaking countries?
Last night one of my friends said that she needed “to go cashpoint”, meaning that she needed go to the cashpoint (ATM) to get some money. This usage struck me as quite strange at the time, but I think I’ve heard similar constructions before.
Expressions like “I need to go eat” or “I need to go sleep” also sound not quite right to me, though not as strange as “to go cashpoint”. I’d normally say something like “I need to go and eat” or “I need to go for something to eat”.
Have you heard or do you use similar constructions?
A visitor to Omniglot sent me these images asking about these mysterious symbols which appear on a map of Lake Monomonac which was found in the attic of a house near the lake. Can any of you recognise and/or decipher them?
They look like some form of shorthand to me – possibly Gregg – but I can’t make any sense of them.
Here’s a transcription of the shorthand, which seems to be the American Benn Pitman version from the mid 19th century:
(1) Surveyed by one of the members of the Monomonack sporting club. The bearings were taken with a pocket compass and // distances obtained by counting the steps
(2) as measured on the shore at high water mark
(3) including the islands
Provided by Beryl Pratt, author of www.long-live-pitmans-shorthand.org.uk
