{"id":19538,"date":"2020-07-22T14:20:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T14:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19538"},"modified":"2020-07-22T14:20:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T14:20:17","slug":"whirling-dustsuckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19538","title":{"rendered":"Whirling Dustsuckers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the Dutch words I learnt recently is <strong>stofzuiger<\/strong> [st\u0254fs\u0153y\u0263\u0259r], or literally &#8220;dustsucker&#8221;. In English you might call it a vacuum, vacuum cleaner, hoover or even a dyson.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stofzuiger<\/strong> comes from <strong>stof<\/strong> (dust) and <strong>zuigen<\/strong> (to suck, hoover, be bad at).<\/p>\n<p>When I first learnt this word, I thought that stof might be related to stuff in English, so a Dutch vacuum cleaner would be a &#8220;stuffsucker&#8221;. However, <strong>stof<\/strong> is in fact two words in Dutch that have different meanings and come from different roots.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stof<\/strong> as in dust comes from the Proto-Germanic <em>*stub\u0105, *stubjuz<\/em> (dust), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*d\u02b0eub\u02b0-<\/em> (to whisk, smoke, obscure), from <em>*d\u02b0ew-<\/em> (to whirl, waft, stink, shake; steam, haze, smoke) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/stof#Middle_Dutch\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Related words include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>huisstof = household dust<\/li>\n<li>stofdoek = duster, dust cloth<\/li>\n<li>stoffen = to dust, to remove dust from<\/li>\n<li>stoffig = dusty<\/li>\n<li>stofvrij = dustfree<\/li>\n<li>stofwolk = dust cloud<\/li>\n<li>stofzuigen = to vacuum \/ hoover<\/li>\n<li>stofzuigerslang = vacuum cleaner hose (&#8220;dust-sucker-snake&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The other <strong>stof<\/strong> means matter, material, substance, fabric or curriculum. It comes from the Middle Dutch <em>stoffe<\/em>, from the Old French <em>estophe \/ estoffe<\/em>, from <em>estoffer<\/em> (to decorate, garnish), from Old High German <em>stoff\u014dn<\/em> (to stop, halt, stuff, insert), from the Proto-West Germanic <em>*stupp\u014dn<\/em> (to cram, plug, stuff). The English word stuff comes from the same root.<\/p>\n<p>Related words include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>afvalstof = waste product (&#8220;waste-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>brandstof = fuel (&#8220;burning-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>delfstof = mineral (&#8220;excavated-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>kleurstof = dye, colourant (&#8220;colour-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>koolstof = coal (&#8220;coal stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>stikstof = nitrogen (&#8220;suffocating-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>voedingstof = nutrient (&#8220;food-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>waterstof = hydrogen (&#8220;water-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>zuurstof = oxygen (&#8220;sour-stuff&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Are there interesting names for vacuum cleaners in other languages?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27734783@N04\/3342571834\/in\/photolist-66ny9S-MLYJd-25KEp6z-ASbd1Z-iaAEeH-6UGVRW-RTXZm7-5c75KS-7E17GZ-eky22K-qStZBQ-57FTMG-pBgkgH-28P4FFs-MKtRnk-e1JsVi-FHLoT-8ZN2mt-8SNzLQ-5TuU2o-r5Y1wh-xoFkS-5woL5q-rQxTPi-4sbQEW-i3efY-7Z3TPa-NdNGSu-uts7YN-rVjvgY-SxFaaT-bHfpsX-sXVrR3-Ly9XVS-2jguxLU-YaAoaL-7TL9uR-2iQzNeq-2iQzN64-9p7KbK-5WUFyn-JiKFNC-pZ5wcm-8uPKJF-8rFQCG-e7bJH2-5Geo7N-NuYUrC-dAVEtr-e7bJNv\" title=\"Henri stofzuiger\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3368\/3342571834_ff36292992_z.jpg\" alt=\"Henri stofzuiger\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the Dutch words I learnt recently is stofzuiger [st\u0254fs\u0153y\u0263\u0259r], or literally &#8220;dustsucker&#8221;. In English you might call it a vacuum, vacuum cleaner, hoover or even a dyson. Stofzuiger comes from stof (dust) and zuigen (to suck, hoover, be bad at). When I first learnt this word, I thought that stof might be related [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,104,107,10,182,34,178,44,45,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-middle-dutch-dietsc-duutsch","category-old-french","category-old-high-german","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19538","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=19538"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19548,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19538\/revisions\/19548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}