{"id":22685,"date":"2023-01-27T15:09:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T15:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22685"},"modified":"2023-01-27T15:09:02","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T15:09:02","slug":"dampeners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22685","title":{"rendered":"Dampeners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday night I was at my usual Welsh folk music session having a nice time, then unfortunately a guy fell over and banged his head &#8211; he was a bit unsteady on his feet, and had drunk quite a bit.  He was okay and has apparently recovered now, but it put a bit of a <strong>dampener<\/strong> on the evening.<\/p>\n<p>A <strong>dampener<\/strong> is a device that moistens or dampens something, or a discouraging event or remark. Synonyms include buzzkill, killjoy and spoilsport. Do you have any others?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/barnism\/118041669\/in\/photolist-bqZFc-qvyZRv-aEwyUz-yEba3N-2n5baMx-XecFep-XecF6t-CuoEUg-LVoUFE-4jHWYN-6fJYc7-4hGQNB-xtVWFb-6fJXqQ-4hLWkd-y9mCYo-S9gMJ1-y9mJff-8G3qc9-yq2jhS-L8Qnj7-M672tz-yoD65J-Rrtdc1-y9mAy3-dm3Ppu-VoGeU8-qE1Z9B-XecDoR-XecDct-XecDMM-Ysynf2-XecEQZ-CKyGRQ-5oMTwk-9ynnFr-zKeF7s-XrAqXS-4WE3vK-4WJkqS-M672Lt-M672Nc-M672cT-M672Eg-Bk2N41-5K7bcV-gDk2pQ-7zi2q2-NX3fYZ-5qJAT6\" title=\"killjoys\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/42\/118041669_8baaaff101_z.jpg\" alt=\"killjoys\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It comes from the Middle English <em>dampen<\/em> (to stifle, suffocate), from the Proto-Germanic <em>*dampaz<\/em> (vapour), from <em>*dimban\u0105<\/em> (to fog, smoke) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/dampener\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Last night when talking about this incident in French, I learnt the phrase <strong>g\u00e2cher qch<\/strong>, which means to to a dampener\/damper on something. <strong>G\u00e2cher<\/strong> on its own means to spoil, ruin, muck up, bungle, waste, squander (chances), temper (plaster) or mix (mortar). It appears in phrases like <strong>g\u00e2cher le paysage<\/strong> (to be a blot of the landscape) and <strong>g\u00e2cher<\/strong> (to kill a party [<a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/french-english\/g%C3%A2cher\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><strong>G\u00e2cher<\/strong> comes from the Old French <em>gaschier<\/em> (to spol, spoil, waste), from <em>guaschier\/waschier<\/em> (to wash, soak), from the Frankish <em>*waskan<\/em> (to wash, bathe), from the Proto-Germanic <em>*waskan\u0105<\/em> (to wash), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*wod-<\/em> (wet) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/g%C3%A2cher\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Words from the same roots include <strong>wash<\/strong> in English, <strong>wassen<\/strong> (to wash, clean) in Dutch, <strong>guazz\u00e0re<\/strong> (to wallow) in Italian, and <strong>vaske<\/strong> (to wash, shampoo, launder, shuffle) in Danish [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic\/waskan%C4%85\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday night I was at my usual Welsh folk music session having a nice time, then unfortunately a guy fell over and banged his head &#8211; he was a bit unsteady on his feet, and had drunk quite a bit. He was okay and has apparently recovered now, but it put a bit of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,10,26,44,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-language","category-middle-english","category-proto-germanic","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22685","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=22685"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22694,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22685\/revisions\/22694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}