What I learnt about language today

[Paulclem]

I'm always coming across meanings I hadn't fully understood in English; new words and lots of language trivia. I thought I would open a thread to share what I learn about language.

I learnt something today about the word aesthetic.

I found this definition from the greek.

Greek aisthtikos, of sense perception, from aisthta, perceptible things,

So it's to do with perception in it's root form.

Thus we get the word anaesthetic - not perceiving or not feeling in this case.
I never made that connection before. :biggrin5:

[SleepyWitch]

Thus we get the word anaesthetic - not perceiving or not feeling in this case.
I never made that connection before. :biggrin5:
me neither, and I took Classical Greek for 3 years in school. just shows how stupid I am.
Good, idea for a thread, Paul.
Let me share some words for bread rolls with people from outside the UK who might not have come across them: bap, batch, bun, .. the list goes on. I don't know about other parts of England, but here in Merseyside, people have discussions about which word to use for what kind of bread roll.
And my favourite: butty (a sandwich). They never tought us that in school in Germany.

[Paulclem]

me neither, and I took Classical Greek for 3 years in school. just shows how stupid I am.
Good, idea for a thread, Paul.
Let me share some words for bread rolls with people from outside the UK who might not have come across them: bap, batch, bun, .. the list goes on. I don't know about other parts of England, but here in Merseyside, people have discussions about which word to use for what kind of bread roll.
And my favourite: butty (a sandwich). They never tought us that in school in Germany.

Yes there are a number of words for bread around the UK. In Yorkshire we used breadcake for batch/bun. In the North East in Sunderland and Newcastle, they used stottie. In Coventry they use the word batch too.

[Veho]

Yes there are a number of words for bread around the UK. In Yorkshire we used breadcake for batch/bun. In the North East in Sunderland and Newcastle, they used stottie. In Coventry they use the word batch too.

We use 'barm cake' in Lancashire. :biggrin5:

[Paulclem]

We use 'barm cake' in Lancashire. :biggrin5:

Yes - I've heard that too. I used to "cross the border" and play Lancashire teams at Rugby League a million years ago...about.

[Basil]

Don and doff are perfect antonyms of each other because they are contractions of the phrases do on and do off.

I bet everyone already already knew that.

[Basil]

I'm referring to don in the sense of putting on an article of clothing, of course, and not in the sense of, say, your friend Don. Who probably isn't a perfect antonym of the word doff. Or mabe he is; I don't really know the guy.

[Paulclem]

Don and doff are perfect antonyms of each other because they are contractions of the phrases do on and do off.

I bet everyone already already knew that.

Interesting. I didn't know that.

[MarkBastable]

Don and doff are perfect antonyms of each other because they are contractions of the phrases do on and do off.

I bet everyone already already knew that.

Does the OED support that rather satisfying derivation? I'm not saying it's wrong - and I sort of hope it's right - but language is rarely that neat.

Edit: (I just looked at Dict.com, and they reckon it's so...)


While I'm here, a quiz: without looking it up, from which language does the word bistro come?

[SleepyWitch]

While I'm here, a quiz: without looking it up, from which language does the word bistro come?
I thought it was French? But you wouldn't turn it into a quiz if it was something really obvious.
Russian?

[MarkBastable]

I thought it was French? But you wouldn't turn it into a quiz if it was something really obvious.
Russian?

Yeah - Russian, via French. So the next question is - how?

[SleepyWitch]

Yeah - Russian, via French. So the next question is - how?

wow, is it really Russian? how would it be spelled in Russian? :banana: I'll let someone else have a go at the "how" of it first. Don't want to make a fool of myself.

[MarkBastable]

wow, is it really Russian? how would it be spelled in Russian? :banana: I'll let someone else have a go at the "how" of it first. Don't want to make a fool of myself.

I'm not sure how to render Cyrillic letters here, otherwise I'd show you.

[kiki1982]

Yes, Russian. It means 'quickly', so essentially probably a place which serves you quickly with food.

and this is how it's spelled:

быстро

(ust go to word, put it in there wit insert symbol and then copy paste)

:D (hoping that my Russian spelling has't got that bad)

[MarkBastable]

Yes, Russian. It means 'quickly', so essentially probably a place which serves you quickly with food.

and this is how it's spelled:

быстро

(ust go to word, put it in there wit insert symbol and then copy paste)

:D (hoping that my Russian spelling has't got that bad)

The theory is that Napoleon's army picked it up during the Moscow campaign, hearing people and proprietors in bars and inns shouting at the staff, "Bistro!"

[kiki1982]

The opposite has also been claimed, apparently: during the Russian occupation of Paris, Russian officers and cossacks would have shouted 'bystro' when they wanted their food/drink quickly... The event has a plaque on Montmartre.

To me, that sounds quite unbelievable, as the word is pronounced 'bystra' as the 'o' is unstressed. Therefore coming more across as a very faint 'a' or shwa than an 'o'. If this etymology is serious, then the thing would have been transcribed and entered into the European language as 'bistra/e'. Also the French troups of Napoleon would have heard it in that version, so I don't think that can be the case.

By French dictionary Robert, which put the word in there in 1880, it has been argued that it was an abbreviation of a French dialect word which accidentally was the same as the Russian one, but which didn't have anything to do with it. But that's French, though, and the French are very resilient to foreign influences. They wouldn't want to give the impression that they once did accept a Russian word into their language :rolleyes:.

There were, though, a lot of Russian and Eastern European immigrants in France, so they could have brought the word over and started to pronounce it in a kind of colloquial way, and the French way, with an o. Only a guess, though.

[Taliesin]

Actually, according to Wikipedia, ы is a close front unrounded vowel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_unrounded_vowel), which, if you look at the chart given on the page, is probably quite near to whatever "i" is in the French word "bistrot".


Still, for me, ы and i sound very different too, but that's probably because the closest thing to ы in Estonian is õ, close-mid back unrounded vowel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_back_unrounded_vowel) so I think about ы as õ. But õ is pretty far from "i".


One interesting thing is the concept of doublets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublet_(linguistics)) - words that have the same etymological roots, but have arrived to the target language via different routes, often having similar meanings.
For example - zero and cipher, coming from the same root

which is the Arabic "صفر" (which transliterates as "sifr"). Via Italian this became "zefiro" and thence "zero" in modern English, Portuguese, French, and Italian. But via Spanish it became "cifra" and thence "cifre" in Old French and "cipher" in modern English (and "chiffre" in modern French).


And, for the last bit of trivia - the word from which the word knight comes, meant a boy or a servant - it probably meant somebody more similar to a squire than a knight.
The word "knave" comes form a similar source, I think, also the German words "Knecht", servant, and "Knabe", boy (a bit archaic).
So yes, when you think about the word "knight", then it probably originally didn't mean the guy in shining armor but the one who had to shine it.

[kiki1982]

The 'i' in French, though, is more similar to 'и'. Very closed and hard. So is the French 'i'. ы though is kind of a rather neglected 'i' which really requires your mouth to think it, but not say it... Just take on the most open and neglected position in your mouth and then say it...

That is interesting what you said about cipher and zero, though... Remember that.

In view of knights being awarded land in exchange for their service to the king, I think the word 'knight' as coming from servant is not so far-fetched... I mean, they were not just awarded that title to stay in their castle, but to lead an army when the king felt like it. So, servants indeed, really. Only later it became associated with landed gentry.

[SleepyWitch]

To me, that sounds quite unbelievable, as the word is pronounced 'bystra' as the 'o' is unstressed. Therefore coming more across as a very faint 'a' or shwa than an 'o'. If this etymology is serious, then the thing would have been transcribed and entered into the European language as 'bistra/e'. Also the French troups of Napoleon would have heard it in that version, so I don't think that can be the case.


That's what I was thinking, too, which is why I asked how it is spelled.

[MarkBastable]

It's true that the Russian o at the end of the word is pronounced quite like an a - because it's unstressed - but for that very reason it could easily take on more or less any shape at all in the move to another language.


When etymologists track the movement of words through time and geography, they pretty much ignore vowels because they are so mutable.

[kiki1982]

That may well be, but the French 'o' is definitely an 'o', there is no doubt about it.

If the etymology, which has not been accepted by French etymologists anyway, is right and is based on hearing alone, the French would not have considered the word to have an 'o' in it, but rather a French 'e' or 'a'. Probably a 'e', like in 'poste', barely audible. And they could not read Cyrillic apart from a few diplomats no doubt.

I just wonder whether the etymology around 'bistrouilles' is not a better possibility.

[Paulclem]

Linguistic archaeology - brilliant.

[MystyrMystyry]

But also the possibility of French vowel sounds changing over time, Kiki, much as English vowels have

And why not Russian vowels also?

[kiki1982]

We are talking 19th century, not the 17th like Shakespeare. Since the 19th century not a lot has changed because those changes were slowed down by printing. Not that all people talked normal standard language, far from, but those dialects were not that different from what they are now if still spoken.

And the Russian... there are several dialects, of course, but they mainly appertain to Os not becoming As in terms of vowels. Though only in the North, apparently, so not in Moscow.

[Paulclem]

Last year - so not strictly today - I learnt that a harbinger was an actual job, and not just an omen as I'd always thought.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/harbinger

Apparently Henry VIII employed them to check out places he was visiting to make sure there was no disease prevalent. I read it in a CJ Sansom book set at the time of Henry VIII's progress to the North.