Category: Words and phrases

Fancy some cuddle-me-buff?

By Simon

According to an episode of the podcast Something Rhymes with Purple, the expression cuddle-me-buff is slang for beer, although why is uncertain.

According to Word and Phrases from the Past, cuddle-me-buff is a Derbyshire dialect terms for an intoxicating liquor.

Another interest word in Derbyshire dialect is swilkerin’, or to drink tea from a saucer [source].

According to QI, cuddle-me-buff is a Yorkshire dialect term for beer.

There are some other more common slang words for intoxicating beverages, such as booze and hoo(t)ch. Do you know others?

Fine Fettles

By Simon

Are you in fine fettle?

If you’re in fine fettle, you are in a good state or condition, according to dictionary.com. It apparently comes from a Lancashire dialect word meaning “to shape, prepare, fix, arrange”.

Fettle may come from Middle English fetlen (to shape, fix, put, bestow), possibly from the Old English fetian (to fetch, bring to, marry), or from the Old English fetel (belt, girdle).

According to Wiktionary, fettle as a noun means:

  • A state of proper physical condition; kilter or trim.
  • One’s mental state; spirits.
  • Sand used to line a furnace.
  • A person’s mood or state, often assuming the worst (Geordie / Cumbrian dialect): e.g. What’s yer fettle marra?
  • a seam line left by the meeting of mold pieces (in ceramics)
  • The act of fettling (British dialect)

As a verb, fettle means:

  • To sort out, to fix, to mend, to repair (Northern England)
  • To make preparations; to put things in order; to do trifling business
  • To line the hearth of a furnace with sand prior to pouring molten metal.
  • To be upset or in a bad mood (Geordie dialect), e.g. Divint fettle yersel ower that!
  • To remove (as by sanding) the seam lines left by the meeting of two molds (in ceramics)
  • To prepare (archaic)

Fettle is usually used in the phrase ‘in fine fettle’. Have you seen/heard it used with other words or in other contexts?

Clustering Consonants!

By Simon

Clusters of consonants are quite common in Czech. Some words have no vowels at all. A couple that I came across recently: brzd [ˈbr̩st] (break) and krb [kr̩p] (fireplace).

Brzd is the genitive plural of brzda (brake (in a vehicle)). Related words include: brzdit [ˈbr̩zɟɪt] (to break) and brzdný [ˈbr̩zdniː] (breaking).

Krb means fire, hearth, fireplace or ingle. Related words include: krbový (relating or pertaining to fireplaces), krbová deska (hearthstone) and krbové náčiní (fire irons).

Other vowelless words include:

  • blb [ˈbl̩p] = wally (stupid person)
  • chrp [ˈxr̩p] = of cornflowers
  • drhl [ˈdr̩ɦl̩]= he scrubbed, scoured, rubbed
  • hrkl [ˈɦr̩kl̩] = he rattled
  • krk [kr̩k] = neck
  • plch [pl̩x] = dormouse
  • scvrkl [ˈst͡svr̩kl̩] = he shrank
  • škrtl [ˈʃkr̩tl̩] = he cancelled, deleted, scratched
  • vlk [vl̩k] = wolf

Source: Wiktionary

There are several tongue twisters made up of words like this:

See and hear more of these.

In fact, the r and l in these words funtion as semi-vowels, so you could say that they’re not really vowelless. This doesn’t make them any easier to pronounce.

Sources: Wiktionary and bab.la

Are you a quidnunc?

By Simon

A quidnunc is “a person eager to learn news and scandal”, or in other words, a busybody, gossip or nosy parker. It comes from the Latin quid nunc? (what now?) [source].

If you are a quidnunc, then you could be said to be quidnunctious and maybe you engage in quidnuncery (irresponsible rumourmongering).

I heard this word discussed on the Something Rhymes with Purple podcast, and thought I’d write about it.

Do you know any other words that come from phrases like this?

What would you call a quidnunc?

Nurdling

By Simon

Do you nurdle? Have you ever nurdled?

The verb to nurddle means:

  • To score runs by gently nudging the ball into vacant areas of the field (in cricket).
  • To gently waffle or muse on a subject which one clearly knows little about.

The noun nurddle means:

  • A type of shot in cricket
  • A cylindrical shaped pre-production plastic pellet used in manufacturing and packaging.
  • A blob of toothpaste shaped like a wave, often depicted on toothpaste packaging.

The origins of this word are uncertain.

Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nurdle

Are there equvialents of this word in other languages?

Working like a …

By Simon

The Russian idiom, работать как лошадь, means to work hard, or literally ‘to work like a horse’. Another idiom with the same meaning is работать как проклятый (‘to work like the damned’) [source].

Horse Ploughing (18)

In English you might say that you’re working like a dog. Other variations on this phrase include wokring like a beaver and working like a trojan [source]. Do you know of any others?

hard working

In Welsh you might say that you’re working ‘to the marrow of your bones’ – gweithio hyd fêr dy esgyrn, which means to work for hard, or to overwork.

One equvialent in French is travailler comme un acharné (‘working like a relentless person’).

What about in other languages?

Gardens and Castles

By Simon

The word for garden in Russian, and also in Belarusian, Ukrainian and Serbian, is сад [sat], which also means orchard. It comes from the Proto-Slavic word *sadъ (plant, garden).

The word for garden in most other Slavic languages is the same: sad in Croatian, Slovenian, Polish, Slovak and Sorbian. There are also similar words in Latvian (sads) and Lithuanian (sõdas) [source].

The word sad also exists in Czech, but just means orchard. The Czech word for garden is zahrada [ˈzaɦrada], which comes from za (for, in, behind), and hrad (castle), from the Proto-Slavic *gȏrdъ* (settlement, enclosed place). So zahrada could be translated as “in/behind the castle” [source].

*The Proto-Slavic *gȏrdъ comes ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰórtos (enclosure), which is also the root of the Irish gort (wheatfield), the Welsh garth (hill, enclosure), the Latin hortus (garden), and the English horticulture, yard and garden, and related words in other languages.

Powis Castle

Outlaws and Brigands

By Simon

Here are a few words that might be relevant today, if you happen to be in the UK:

Election – the choice of a leader or representative by popular vote, comes from the Anglo-Norman eleccioun, from the Latin ēlectiō (choice, option), from ēligō (I pluck out, I choose).

Vote – a formalized choice on matters of administration or other democratic activities, comes from the Latin vōtum (prayer, votive offering, wish, longing), from voveō (to vow, promise solemnity, dedicate, wish), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁wegʷʰ- (to promise, vow, praise).

Ballot – originally, a small ball placed in a container to cast a vote; now, a piece of paper or card used for this purpose, or some other means used to signify a vote. It comes from Italian ballotta (ballot, shot, ball, boiled chestnut), a diminutive of balla (bale, bundle).

Poll – a collection of votes, from the Middle English pol(le) (scalp, pate), probably from the Middle Dutch pol / pōle / polle (top, summit; head), from Proto-Germanic *pullaz (round object, head, top), from Proto-Indo-European *bolno-, *bōwl- (orb, round object, bubble), from *bew- (to blow, swell). The meaning of a “collection of votes” was first recorded in 1625, and came from the notion of counting heads.

Labour – comes from the Middle English labouren, from Old French laborer (to work, labour), from Latin laborare (to labor, strive, exert oneself, suffer), from labor (labor, toil, work, exertion).

Liberal – comes from Old French liberal (appropriate for a free person, generous, giving), from the Latin līberālis (befitting a freeman), from līber (free).

Conservative – comes from the Middle French conservatif (conservative), from Latin cōnservō (to preserve, conserve), from con- (with) and servō (to save, rescue, preserve, retain, watch).

Tory – comes from the Middle Irish tóraidhe, (outlaw, robber or brigand), from tóir (pursuit) [More details].

Source: Wiktionary.

Procastination

By Simon

Procrastinate Now! (or tomorrow, or whenever you feel like it)

Procrastination – “the act of postponing, delaying or putting off, especially habitually or intentionally.” From the Middle French procrastination, from the Latin prōcrāstinātiō (a putting off until tomorrow), from prōcrāstinō (procrastinate), from prō (of) + crāstinus (tomorrow), from crās (tomorrow) [source].

Crās comes from the Proto-Italic *krās, and is probably from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (head, top), which is the root of words for head, horn, cow and others in various Indo-European languages
[source].

Crās became crai in Italian, crás in Portuguese and cras in Sardinian. These all mean tomorrow, but only the Sardinian one is still used. Tomorrow is domani in Italian – from the Late Latin dē māne (of the early morning), amanhã in Portuguese – from Vulgar Latin *ad maneana (at morning). The French demain (tomorrow), and the Romanian dimineață (morning), come from the same root as the Italian domani.

The antonym of procrastination is precrastination / pre-crastination, or “the completion of a task too quickly or too early, when taking more time would result in a better outcome” [source]. It was coined by David Rosenbaum in an article he wrote in 2014: Pre-crastination: hastening subgoal completion at the expense of extra physical effort. [More information].

I have a tendency to procrastinate, and often put off things that don’t seem important or urgent. For example, there’s a pile of papers on my desk that could do with filing, and I might just get round to it one of these days. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t though.

Sometimes, when I’m in a getting-things-done-mood, I go round doing all the things I’ve been putting off for days/week/months/years. Or at least as many of them as I can before I get distracted by something more interesting.

Some things I put off and do something easier instead – writing this blog post, for example, rather than recording the next episode of my podcast, or doing some language lessons rather than practising one of my instruments.

I precrastinate as well, but wasn’t aware of it. Or at least I didn’t have a word for this practice until now.

Are you a procrastinator, and/or a precrastinator?

What task / jobs / activities do you tend to put off?

What things to you prefer to do instead?