I have happened upon a number of interesting word-related thingies over the past week or so. As it’s been a while since I posted anything, I’ll share them with you here.
New words(?)
Merriam-Webster, regarded by many as the US dictionary has published its new edition, and has added some 100 new words. Naturally, some of these have a definite US bias, but many are to be found in use in international or UK English. A few examples:
Acai: A berry found in Central and South America. The word itself is an anglicization of the Portuguese name for the tree and the berry – açaí, and is pronounced similarly – ah-sigh-ee. Now famous because Oprah Winfrey promoted it on US television, acai is said to be able to cure a quite unbelievable range of ailments: cancers, heart disease, obesity, insomnia, asthma and peeling wallpaper. OK, I made up the last one, but it’s no more ludicrous than the rest.
Shawarma: From the Arabic Shāwurma. Pronounced shah-waa-mah, this is a sandwich of sliced lamb (traditionally) or sometimes chicken, along with vegetables and tahini in a flat bread. I’m frankly amazed that the Americans have taken so long to get what I grew up knowing as a kebab – something eaten after drinking an unfeasible quantity of beer. Where I live now, in Belgium, it’s known as a kebap – I have no idea why, although drinking an unfeasible quantity of beer still appears to be prerequisite for some.
Earmark: Another surprise. The word (as a verb) refers to the power of Congress to set aside monies for a particular fund or project. The word has been widely used in UK and international English in this sense for a very long time, with early references appearing (in the hyphenated form, ‘ear-mark’) around 1868. The etymology is pretty much as you might have guessed – the marking of farm animals with ear tags to signify ownership. You may not know that the practise was also used on prisoners in the pillory to mark them as criminals. This, however, was done with a knife and not a tag. Not that this makes it any better.
For a longer list of new additions to the Merriam-Webster, follow this link
The slang thang
Slang is something I recently came to learn to mean ‘snake’ in Danish and Dutch. It also means ‘hosepipe’ and ‘penis’, at least in Dutch, anyway. No prizes for guessing why. I take a more-than-healthy interest in slang, particularly UK slang, not only because I am a Brit, but also because it seems to change every other week. Always on the lookout for a new resource, I came across this site. Many sites purporting to be a repository for slang tend to have a tone that is very self-congratulatory, a smug ‘aren’t we clever and edgy’ feel to them, but this is very well done. Primarily a resource for the poor Americans, who are bemused by the fact that everyone in the world talks funny except them (insert smiley here to avoid people turning up at my house shouting “USA! USA!”). The site has other sections too, all of which are well worth a read, even if the author does occasionally lose the plot, as demonstrated by his near-rant at the unavailability of decent bacon in the US.
Please fondle my bum
Monty Python fans will remember the famous ‘Hungarian Phrasebook’ sketch, in which a publisher let loose a phrasebook for Hungarians to use when visiting the UK. Innocuous phrases became liable to cause a breach of the peace. While looking for some simple Spanish translations recently (I don’t trust Babelfish that much), I happened upon this site, offering many ‘useful’ translations in French, Spanish and German (here), and also in Russian, Italian, Danish and Dutch (here). It all starts very well, but you soon realize that if you tried some of these out, your results – as they say in advertising – may vary. For example, the ever-useful phrase ‘If you go to the USA, you’ll find that a dime is a lot of money’ translates very convincingly as ‘Si vous allez aux Etats-Unis, vous trouverez que dix cents c’est beaucoup de fric.‘ But, this is the internet, after all, and you may find that if you are wandering around Paris and want to say ‘I must compliment you on your understanding of our language’, the phrase ‘Tu n’entends donc rien, espèce de con?‘ are probably not the words you are searching for. A lot of fun, but I can’t help wondering how many people have been punched or arrested for innocently, or stupidly, using something they found online.
Until next time,
Tom
Huzzah! Tom Joad is back with us. Despite my totally fluent French, hemhem, I was surprised to find on a trip last week to La Rochelle, that there were a whole slew of French words I didn’t know, like “estran” (foreshore), “ressac” (undertow), “pertuis” (channel or straits) and “rose trémière” (hollyhock). Words that make it pretty obvious I had never been to the Atlantic coast before. You’re never too old to learn something new.
Thanks for the hearty ‘welcome back’ Daphne =)
I found myself reading a nature magazine in the hairdresser’s yesterday, and realized there are simply *hundreds* of animal names in French that I don’t know. My favourite discovery was the praying mantis (mante religeuse). One that I already knew, but which has always troubled me, is the French for ‘bat’ (the mammal, not the thing for hitting other things with). Chauve-souris? It’s a flying mouse, damn it! Why do the francophones only care about whether it has hair or not? Isn’t being a mammal and flying spectacular enough for them? And besides, they’re not even bald.
Any native French speakers reading this? Would you care to explain why a language with such a broad palette for description could have got this one so wrong?