Month: July 2016

Muckanaghederdauhaulia

Niall O'Donnell 14 Comments

The above is the longest place name in Ireland, and is obviously quite a mouthful. It’s an Anglicisation of the original Gaelic name Muiceneach idir Dhá Sháile, which, as you all know, means “pig-shaped hill between two seas.” Most modern placenames in Ireland are similar Anglicisations. For example, many Irish towns begin with Bally- or Balli-, coming from the Irish word Baile (town) being part of the original name. A town like Ballycastle would have originally been name Baile an Chaislean (town of the castle).

Such Anglicisation can lead to redundancy. This is often the case with rivers, as many of them begin with Owen-, from the Irish word abhainn, meaning river. So Abhainn Buí, meaning the Yellow River, was translated to the River Owenboy.

Some pretty ordinary sounding placenames have such origins, but some can be a bit of a mouthful due to some clumsy translation: Continue reading →

“Ok?” “Okay!”

Niall O'Donnell 33 Comments

Ok (or okay) is one of those words (like hiccup/hiccough), wherein I always thought the different spellings could be attributed to one being an older, more formal spelling of the word, and the other a modern abbreviation. I assumed that okay was the original spelling, and ok the modern version, after some clever individual realised that the two letters pronounced one after the other sounded the same as okay. But like hiccough and hiccup, I was wrong to assume so. Continue reading →

Unstoppable

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A response to the daily prompt: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/unstoppable/

As anyone who’s had to learn English knows, it can be a frustrating, illogical language at times. It can be hard to find hard and fast rules, and when there are rules, there are always exceptions.

The word unstoppable though, is a nice example of how sometimes thinking logically about English makes sense. Continue reading →

Motherland or Fatherland?

Niall O'Donnell 7 Comments

Why do the inhabitants of some nations refer to the country as Motherland, and some Fatherland? The answer is a little complicated, unsurprisingly.

The use of both terms became most common in works of propaganda during World War II. This is particularly evident in the cases of The Soviet Union and Germany. Many Soviet propaganda posters of the time feature the phrase za rodinu! (For the Motherland!). Rodina, the Russian word for homeland, is a feminine noun, and many related words with the stem rod are associated with motherhood, fertility and procreation, so it perhaps makes sense that Russians would conceive of Mother Russia. Continue reading →

I Thought I’d Thought you Better than That!

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

I think everyone has little things that people say or write that drive them crazy. Things that are strictly incorrect, like I could care less, I should of known better, or I’ve went there a lot. I try not to get annoyed by such things, but there’s one that always bugs me: thought instead of taught. Continue reading →

You are Where you Live

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

Acoustic adaptation is a theory in naturalism which suggests that the sounds animals make adapt to their environment: either as a result of their physical environment, or other sounds around them. You can notice that in cities, for examples, were birds will often seem to mimic the man-made sounds they hear every day. Recently though, some linguists have suggested that human languages undergo a similar process of adaptation.

Though this theory have yet to be conclusively proven, there are some intriguing ideas behind it. The main principle believed to affect the sound of a language is the frequency sound waves can travel at in a particular environment. For example, consonants don’t travel well in areas of dense vegetation such as rainforests, and therefore languages which developed in such landscapes are light on consonants and feature long vowel sounds with lots shifts in tone. Continue reading →

A Slice of Life

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

You might have noticed that I haven’t been so active in the last few days. Well, not to worry (I assume you’ve been worrying): I’ve just been a little busy. As I work in an English-language school, this is always the busiest time of the year. People always get surprised at that. They assume that because we’re a school, we have the same schedule as state schools, and have generous summer holidays, and mid-term breaks to relieve some of the monotony that sets in after a few months of work. Yet alas, that’s not the case (we only close for 2 weeks at Christmas), and as most normal people are enjoying their holidays, my colleagues and I are working harder than at any time of the year.

And there’s a lot of work involved in a language school. Taking bookings, processing payments, arranging transportation and accommodation, hiring and training teachers, planning and booking activities, testing and placing students, dealing with their issues about classes, books, their level, accommodation, personal problems…well, there’s a lot to it. And in July and August we’re doing it for much larger numbers of students, which in the summer includes individual adults and teenagers, big groups of teenagers, and families. I’m not complaining though: I thrive on the pressure and think that it pushes me to work at my best. Continue reading →