{"id":11824,"date":"2015-11-06T19:09:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T18:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=11824"},"modified":"2015-11-06T19:09:20","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T18:09:20","slug":"squibs-and-squabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=11824","title":{"rendered":"Squibs and squabs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When an event is not very successful, you could say that it <strong>went off like a damp squib<\/strong>, or even a <strong>damp squid<\/strong>, as a friend mistakenly said last night. <\/p>\n<p>A <strong>squib<\/strong> is obviously something that does not work properly when it&#8217;s wet, and I had an idea that it was some kind of explosive.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/english-definition\/squib\">Reverso<\/a>, a squib is:<\/p>\n<p>1. a firework<br \/>\n2. a firework that does not explode because of a fault; dud<br \/>\n3. a short witty attack; lampoon<br \/>\n4. an electric device for firing a rocket engine<br \/>\n5. an insignificant person (<em>obsolete<\/em>)<br \/>\n6. a coward (<em>Aus\/NZ slang<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>And a <strong>damp squib<\/strong> is &#8220;something intended but failing to impress&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Etymology: probably imitative of a quick light explosion.<\/p>\n<p>An unrelated, but similar-sounding word is <strong>squab<\/strong>, which is:<\/p>\n<p>1. a young unfledged bird, esp. a pigeon<br \/>\n2. a short fat person<br \/>\n3. a well-stuffed bolster or cushion; a sofa<br \/>\n4. (of birds) recently hatched and still unfledged<br \/>\n5. short and fat  <\/p>\n<p>Etymology: probably of Germanic origin; compare Swedish dialect <em>sqvabb<\/em> (flabby skin), <em>sqvabba<\/em> (fat woman), German <em>Quabbe<\/em> (soft mass), Norwegian <em>kvabb<\/em> (mud)<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/english-definition\/squab\">http:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/english-definition\/squab<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Squib, squab and squid are all good words for Scrabble.<\/p>\n<p>Are there equivalents of damp squibs in other languages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When an event is not very successful, you could say that it went off like a damp squib, or even a damp squid, as a friend mistakenly said last night. A squib is obviously something that does not work properly when it&#8217;s wet, and I had an idea that it was some kind of explosive. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}