English

G & T Please!

Niall O'Donnell 10 Comments

Ordering food and drink in another country can be a harrowing experience. What if I don’t know what anything means? What if they don’t understand me? What if I order it ok, but then they ask me a question I don’t understand!? Luckily, there are usually a few things that are easy to order, in some countries. One example is a gin & tonic. In many languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and Japanese, the drink is known as a gin tonic. Pretty convenient, if you’re abroad and want to order a drink without embarrassing yourself with any of that funny foreign pronunciation. But why don’t they go the whole hog, and say gin and tonic? Continue reading →

Overpowered by Funk

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

Marge, when kids these days say “bad,” they mean “good.” And to “shake your booty” means to wiggle one’s butt. Permit me to demonstrate…  – Homer Simpson

What do you think of when you hear the word funk? Possibly music, with a particular catchy, sexy kind of grooviness. Or perhaps not necessarily music, but something else with a similar kind of cool. You might also be thinking of the 1970s at the same time, but funk of course is truly timeless.

You may, however, think of a smell. Not just any smell, but one so overpowering, so ripe, so pungent that it’s completely repulsive. Old blue cheese wrapped in a dirty sports sock on a hot summer day kind of repulsive. That could certainly be described as funky. But why would we use the same word for two such different things? Continue reading →

Laughing in Other Languages

Niall O'Donnell 14 Comments

Perhaps it’s appropriate that laugh is a funny word. Not funny ha ha at least, but certainly funny peculiar. Take a moment to put the word out of your mind, to forget about it, and particularly how it sounds. Now imagine seeing it for the first time, without any context, and try to think how you might pronounce it. I certainly wouldn’t be obvious that it’s pronounced /læf/ or /lɑ:f/. While -gh can often sound like f, it’s not always obvious. Thankfully, if we don’t want to use the word laugh, we can find alternatives. Continue reading →

Go ahead, Take a Picture Why Don’t Ya!

Niall O'Donnell 3 Comments

…or don’t. Is there perhaps something sinister about that phrase: take a picture? I was thinking about this today as I went for a run by the river, and passed a man taking a photo. As I’m wont to do, I imagined a situation in which he complained that I got in the way of his photo, and I fired back that he could easily wait a few seconds to take his photo, whereas it would interrupt my rhythm to stop for him. I soon realised that to really win this imaginary argument I’d have to know the correct translation of take a photo in French. I thought it might be faire une photo, but checked when I got home, and found that while that’s possible, prendre une photo (basically a direct translation of to take a photo) is better. Continue reading →

Never Mind the Bollocks

Niall O'Donnell 20 Comments

What English could really benefit from is a standard diminutive form. Many other languages have at least one common way to transform a noun into a dimunitive form, usually by adding a suffix. In French you can add -ette or -ot, Spanish often uses -ina or -ino, Portuguese the similar -inha or -inho, and Italian has a variety such as -etta/-etto and -ino/-ina.

Of course, English borrows some diminutive words from Latin languages, such as featurette, operetta, caipirinha, and duckling/gosling (from Norse). And many specific forms of English feature unique diminutive forms. Scots for example, has quite a few, mainly from older forms of English and Scottish Gaelic. Some words used in Ireland are influenced by the Irish Gaelic diminutive -ín. It’s fairly common for a male baby to be described as a cute little maneen. A country lane might be called a boreen, from the word bóithrín (from bóthair [road] + –ín).

English used to have standard diminutive forms, evidence of which we can still see today. Continue reading →

You Don’t Know Jack

Niall O'Donnell 13 Comments

Why does the name Jack features in so many words and phrases? Continue reading →

Beards

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

Beards are in at the moment. Or at they were in somewhat recently. Even if they’re not in anymore, there are still a lot more of them around than there were a few years ago. For a humble bit of facial hair, the beard has inspired a surprising number of words in the English language, though not as much as people think… Continue reading →