The English Language

a reply to: DISRAELI

Yes, my dictionary gives them the same origin.
The form "fray" is still in use, at least in the expression "entering the fray" (joining in the fight).

Ah! Good call!!! Of course

There we go.
I love how they say "no-thing", too, instead of "nuthing".

I recall an incident in 4th grade (I was 9) where a Spanish word was introduced, and I asked the teacher if it was a combination of two other words (whatever the word was escapes me now - but it made perfectly logical sense to me that it was a hybrid). As I remember, she shot that idea down (something like comparing it to "friend" or "field" for some reason comes to mind???) - but many years later it was obvious that it was.

What was that word?

No idea.
None.
I'll let you guys know if I remember it.

A "whole-nuther" storm rollin' in here!!!
Be safe, everyone!

oh my.....

new word for today:

Exclaustration

Am watching a movie "The Letters" on Netflix - story of Mother Teresa.

Exclaustration is official authorization for religious bound by perpetual vows to live for a limited time outside their religious institute, usually with a view to discerning whether to depart definitively.

Oh, and FWIW, I'd not recommend this movie so far (hour and a half to go). Kinda "B" melodrama stuff.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
Let me also recommend "Defenestration" (the act of throwing someone out of the window).
When it happened in Prague to two gentleman called Martinitz and Slavata, the event sparked off the Thirty Years' War in Germany.
Their lives were saved either by the intervention of angels, or by the fact that a wagon-load of dung had been parked beneath the window, whichever story you choose to believe.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Let me also recommend "Defenestration" (the act of throwing someone out of the window).

It's a really good one, DISRAELI, but it actually has been suggested already! "already posted!! LOL!!"

but yeah, I think it is the act OF BEING THROWN out the window. Not being the thrower-outter-of-windower-guy............

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
I've just seen a definition on Google which coincided with my own.
Probably both are right. As used by historians, it means "an event in which someone is thrown out of a window".

a reply to: DISRAELI

yeah - sort of a "passive" thing.....anyway, I like it.

the phrase, "push came to shove" is a wonderful idiom. It's another sort of passive event-type of thing that happens TO other things.....

When push comes to shove
If push came to shove

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
On that note, I invite you to consider two expressions;
Butt in
Butt out.

"Butt in" means "push with the head", like a goat.
"Butt out" is definitely an American expression. When President Reagan told the Russians to "butt out" of the Falklands crisis, the British newsreader had to add a phrase to explain what he meant.
I've always assumed that "Butt out" was a reversal of the first term based on a misunderstanding of that "butt", treating it as meaning a part of the body.

a reply to: DISRAELI

but what about "buttinski" ?????
A 'buttinski' is a particularly annoying sort of peripheral personage....

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

What a delightful thread, Buzzy!

I am very slow at putting my words into a post, so, many times when I think that I will have the last post, it turns out I have posted the penultimate post.

I'm sure that there will be ATS members who will think posters to this thread are batty.

from 1580s, "pertaining to bats," ..... Slang sense "nuts, crazy" is attested from 1903, from the expression (to have) bats in (one's) belfry, also meaning "not be right in the head" (1899).

I've always liked the etymology of words

Oh, I just wanted to add, that I've seen ATS posters using "penultimate" for "ultimate". I'm quite sure that they have used correctly the word "ultimate" before, so my guess is that they think they have found a really neat word to replace/emphasize "the last", the ne plus ultra. ..... haha look how easy it is for English speakers to incorporate words from other languages, like French words.... to bad this is not so for the French language....

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I'm from Wales but father side from Cornwall so English is my first language and I learned Welsh as a second language in my childhood and school.
Languages fascinate me as well, I like the similarities between foreign languages, and differences...

Peril - English
Pergyl - Welsh
Peligro - Spanish

Fish - English
Pisces - French
Pysgod - Welsh
Pescado - Spanish

...my favourite English word is 'Love', and in Welsh 'Caru' ...lame I know but hey!

a reply to: grainofsand

Welsh rhythms when speaking English are so lovely!!

Like how they say "no thing" instead of "nuthing."

I'd love to learn it - do you know of any particularly good resources for that?
I've tried to learn a little about other languages unrelated to English or Latin, like Russian, Mandarin, Greek - old world languages with strange looking alphabets, too - Arabic, Hebrew (those written languages look like old "shorthand" like they used to teach to high school girls in the USA).

Some of the Asian languages too have such odd-looking symbols. And I learned only little old Spanish - I can get by reading Italian and German and French and Portuguese because they're all similar enough to decipher.....but those foreign languages and alphabets are mind-blowing.

a reply to: desert

I'm glad you've joined us!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Lol I get a hard time no matter if I'm in my (longest now) home world of SW England or in Wales visiting family.
Here I get told oh you sound so Welsh and 'singy' when I speak, but back in Wales I get teased for sounding like posh English!
Only takes a weekend before it comes back though...and I fall in love every time I hear a Welsh accent here in England...usually tourists and if female I soo start a conversation by saying I know and love that accent are you from X area/city/town... that's another story.

BBC website used to have good resources for learning Welsh but it is a tricky one as there are sounds which are not replicated in English 'ch' is like in 'ch' in 'hoch' in German, and 'll' is unlike anything I've experienced in languages from around the world. You have to put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and the air/sound passes at the sides...sorry can't explain it better lol!

Me and my brother chuckled at my son a week or two ago when we were back home and he couldn't pronounce many road signs...some letters have a completely different sound to English.
'ff' is 'f' in Welsh for example, but a single 'f' is sounded as 'v' ...nouns are also masculine or feminine lol

I'm glad I learned it, but with the two sides of the family I either speak English, basic/thinking/translating Welsh in my head, or a mixture of the two which is commonly known as Wenglish lol

a reply to: grainofsand

LOL!! Wenglish. I love it.

One of my favorite movies is The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain....

just for the lilting Welsh and the posh English juxtaposed - during WW1 is when it takes place. Seen it?
Hugh Grant and Colm Meaney. It's a great one.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I actually love that film!!!


Wenglish is soo a thing though, basic greetings, salutations, shows of love or affection, disgust, anger/emotion, whatever, in Welsh, but detailed information etc in English.
I love going to big Welsh speaking areas back home and when they start talking about me in the pub because they think my Anglicised accent means I'm a solely English speaker, their eyes are like rabbits in car headlights when I confront them in Welsh lol

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I like the similarities between foreign languages, and differences...

Peril - English
Pergyl - Welsh
Peligro - Spanish

Fish - English
Pisces - French
Pysgod - Welsh
Pescado - Spanish

The similarities arise from the fact that they are all members of the same language family - Indo-European.

Also, those languages you cite are especially influenced by one particular Indo-European language, though now long dead, Latin.

If you want to see some truly alien-looking languages still spoken in Europe, but not members of Indo-European, check out Basque, Finnish, Hungarian.

a reply to: CJCrawley

You are right! They are!

Have you read Bill Bryson's book "The Mother Tongue"? He explains exactly that - how all the similarities transcend regional or cultural boundaries - spoken language across the globe contains basics that are seen as universal.

Like smiling. Crying. Laughing. Some gestures. Words are surprisingly similar (for very basic nouns) across all languages!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Have you read Bill Bryson's book "The Mother Tongue"?

Read it, got it.

I've read it several times. A gem of a book. Not only informative but extremely witty.

What I find fascinating - I don't know if I read it in that book - is the fact that, when babies go through the 'babbling' phase, they pronounce all the speech sounds contained in every language on Earth. Makes sense, I suppose. I mean, you never hear about anyone having trouble speaking their mother tongue, do you? The sounds were already rehearsed during the 'babbling' phase.

I must have stopped babbling before I got to the rolled 'r'.

*chuckles*

Good job I wasn't born in Spain.