{"id":17663,"date":"2019-03-30T12:36:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T12:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=17663"},"modified":"2019-03-30T12:36:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T12:36:58","slug":"blue-ants-and-pencils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=17663","title":{"rendered":"Blue Ants and Pencils"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/blyant.gif\" style=\"float:right; margin:0 0 20px 20px;\" alt=\"Blyant (pencil in Danish and Norwegian)\" width=\"208\" height=\"208\"\/><\/p>\n<p>In Danish the word for pencil is <strong>blyant<\/strong> [\u02c8bly\u02d0\u02ccan\u02c0d], which sort of sounds like blue ant. When I learnt this, I wondered where this word comes from, and I thought I&#8217;d share what I found with you.<\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>blyant<\/strong>, which is also used in Norwegian, combines <em>bly<\/em> (lead) with the French suffix <em>-ant<\/em>. It is an abbreviation of <em>blyertspen<\/em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/ordnet.dk\/ddo\/ordbog?query=blyant\">source<\/a>], which comes from <em>blyert<\/em> (black lead, graphite), from the German <em>Bleiertz<\/em> (lead ore &#8211; lit. &#8220;lead earth&#8221;) and <em>pen<\/em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/blyant\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Related words include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>blyantsholder = pencil holder<\/li>\n<li>blyantspenge = financial allowance for members of the European Parliament (\u201cpencil money\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>blyantspids = the tip of a pencil<\/li>\n<li>blyantspidser = pencil sharpener<\/li>\n<li>blyantsstreg \/ blyantstreg = pencil line<\/li>\n<li>blyantstegning \/ blyanttegning = pencil drawing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/ordnet.dk\/ddo\/ordbog?query=blyant\">Den Danske Ordbog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The words for pencil in Swedish (<strong>blyertspenna<\/strong>), Faroese and Icelandic (<strong>bl\u00fdantur<\/strong>) come from the same roots [<a href=\"https:\/\/da.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/blyant\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The German word for pencil, <strong>Bleistift<\/strong> [\u02c8bla\u026a\u032f\u0283t\u026aft] comes from a similar root: <em>Blei<\/em> (lead) and <em>Stift<\/em> (pen) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Bleistift\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>There is in fact a creature called a blue ant (<em>Diamma bicolor<\/em>) &#8211; it is blue, but is a species of wasp rather than an ant, and lives in parts of Australia [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blue_ant\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Danish the word for pencil is blyant [\u02c8bly\u02d0\u02ccan\u02c0d], which sort of sounds like blue ant. When I learnt this, I wondered where this word comes from, and I thought I&#8217;d share what I found with you. The word blyant, which is also used in Norwegian, combines bly (lead) with the French suffix -ant. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,104,107,108,111,116,124,10,31,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danish","category-english","category-etymology","category-faroese","category-french","category-german","category-icelandic","category-language","category-norwegian","category-swedish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17663","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=17663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}