# Wizard Words



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

There is a thread about linguistics, and there is a thread about customs (Easter Bunny & Friends) but there doesn't seem to be a thread devoted to the quirky or fascinating aspects of *words*.

Until now. Please post here anything that strikes you as funny or fascinating about a word.
The more *useless* the enchanting snippet, the *better*!

My first post will be about Scottish Shortbread. There is a style of shortbread slice with a lacy border that is called 'Petticoat tails'. As a child I thought it was because petticoats have lacy borders, often. But no - it's because of 'The Auld Alliance', that *special relationship* that has always existed between Scotland & France, based on a shared loathing of England*. 

It is thought that 'petticoat tail' shortbread derives from the Old French 'petites gastelles', little cakes.

So also in Scots, a 'tassie' is a cup (French 'tasse') & a 'condie' is a gutter (French 'conduit').

England has some similar corruptions that go right back to Norman French - for example, two Norman place names near Durham 'petit mer' & 'beau repair' (little sea & good view) have become the mining villages of Pity Me & Bear Park. :lol:

:tiphat: Thanks in advance for any quirky word-quibbles.

(PS - My favourite word at present is *snorkel*.)

*Edit*: I'm thankful to say, not shared by me, half-Scots, half-English - or by Taggart, who married me & has lived in England for 40 years - or by TurnaboutVox, see below.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Another specimen: 'ben' in Scots & Irish is the word for 'mountain'. But under the influence of English, a small mountain range in the west of Ireland has become 'the Twelve *Pins*'.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I once fell in love with words starting with 'dis', and the results are as follows:

The true discordant nature of Al Gore's claims about the correlation between CO2 and Global Warming lies not in what is says but what it fails to say; and this disinclination to provide the full story is prevalent in much of the documentary, doing a major disservice to those who look honestly for truth and causing much unnecessary disesteem for the documentary. Even if Al Gore's followers have managed to dissuade judges from calling the documentary full on discreditable, some finally disillusioned watcher may judge Al Gore's attitude disingenuous, and proceed to hold him in disfavor. Al Gore dissimulated the facts under the guise of simplicity in a most discrepant and disquieting manner, making his attitude towards truth seem both disinclined and dispassionate, a dreadful and dispiriting combination. Is Al Gore disloyal to truth, or were his critical faculties only temporarily dislocated? Is he a disreputable disgrace, or is everything so discomforting that we wish to dispose of the documentary in a most dishonorable manner, to avoid this​
:lol:


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Taggart said:


> The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."


Ten! In this part of Lancashire at least the place name 'Houghton' is pronounced 'Haw-ton'. (Ah, my mistake, that is nearly identical to the 'ough' in thoughtful)

My most recent 'wizard word': I was reading a review of Heitor Villa-Lobos on the net which was absurdly hagiographic (there's another one!). The writer seemed to see his birth as the second coming. The word 'encomium' suddenly popped into my head as the appropriate one. I've never had occasion to use it before, ever.

I am Scots, by the way, but hope I bear no unwarranted malice towards England. My children are English, my wife's parents are English but she grew up in Scotland. We have lived in England for more than 20 years. My brother's partner is French (- Spanish) - we're therefore an Anglo-Scots-European family!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The word "information" has no plural form. The word "data" has a singular form which we never use.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Weston said:


> The word "information" has no plural form. The word "data" has a singular form which we never use.


Except in the phrase datum point and similar expressions. The plural of datum point is datum points This is because we use datum in its second sense - a reference point.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

Here's a fun word: the magic spell "Hocus Pocus." In the Catholic Eucharist, the words "hoc est corpus meum" are spoken ("this is my body"). Or sometimes just "hoc est corpus." But this phrase, said rather quickly, to the non-Latin-speaking congregation, can be misheard as "Hocus Pocus." And now this phrase can be used whenever one thing is supposed to magically change into another :lol:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Yes - similarly, some people think that the dance 'the hokey cokey' originated in a satirical guying of the Mass. The jack-in-the-box also has been suggested as a joke-priest, the way it pops up suddenly.

Another bit of gibberish which may be related to religious Latin is 'all my eye and Betty Martin', meaning something is rubbish. These days it is abbreviated, usually, to 'That is *all my eye*!' When I was young, I was told that it was based on British soldiers in the Napoleonic wars overhearing French soldiers praying to St Martin, 'Ora pro me, Beate Martine'. However, I just googled it, and apparently it first crops up in the eighteenth century, though some people think it may still be based on a medieval prayer to St Martin.

Oh, I do hate it when these little legends are exploded. 
They'll be saying next that Walter Raleigh never put his cloak over a puddle for Queen Elizabeth....


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I love dialect words. My English grandparents were from Staffordshire, and from them I know the words 'baumed' (sticky, like a jam smear), 'flothering' (what long hair does when unkempt), 'manacling' for sewing,and 'nesh' for feeling the cold.

From my Yorkshire background - 'bray' for 'beat up', & 'snicket' for a short alley between streets (not 'snickelway' which was recently coined for a tourist guide of York)

From my Scottish father's side (Dundee), 'havering' and 'blethering' for chattering, 'pow' for forehead, 'bairn' for child, 'cuddy' for pony, and 'scoot' for bottled pop. Taggart's family, from the West coast, used different words: 'wean' for child, and 'ginger' for bottled pop. 

The Scots are wonderfully playful with words. I particularly like 'palatic' for drunk (from 'paralytic') & 'hypie' or 'driachie', both from the word 'hypochondriac'.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I gather 'poppycock' is an English mutation of 'pappykak', which is Dutch for....erm...baby poo.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> I gather 'poppycock' is an English mutation of 'pappykak', which is Dutch for....erm...baby poo.


If you know Dutch, a lot of middle Dutch is intuitively grasped: from that, you can pretty much read middle-English Chaucer in the original without any other study....

From the French, mutated by the Brits, "à tout à l'heure" (see you later) becomes toodle-oo, or too-da-loo.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I was bored, so I bored a hole in a board . So there !


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

PetrB said:


> From the French, mutated by the Brits, "à tout à l'heure" (see you later) becomes toodle-oo, or too-da-loo.


The Brits, especially the English, tend to mutate most things. Some people see it as closer to toddling or walking -Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg, 1919, makes a clear link between toddling and toodling:

"Ripping! I'll be toddling up, then. Toodle-oo, Bertie, old man. See you later."
"Pip-pip, Bicky, dear boy."
He trotted off...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Some people see it as closer to toddling or walking -- Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg, 1919, makes a clear link between toddling and toodling:
> 
> "Ripping! I'll be toddling up, then. Toodle-oo, Bertie, old man. See you later."
> "Pip-pip, Bicky, dear boy."
> He trotted off...


That reads to me more like a distinction between the two terms made clear by proximity, i.e. 
I'll be toddling up, then [I'll be coming up, then] // toodle-oo [See you later.]


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Taggart said:


> The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."


I almost fell off my chair!


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

When I read the title of this thread, I thought we were going to talk about Wingardium Levi-o-sa and Horcruxes!


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

shangoyal said:


> When I read the title of this thread, I thought we were going to talk about Wingardium Levi-o-sa and Horcruxes!


Or even Abracadabra or Shazam or Alacazam - with the recitation here.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The most popular of the christian disciples names, John, has dozens of permutations, traveling to places where either the alphabet or local speech just did not fully accommodate the sound, and thereby acquiring a variant.

North Europe: Jon / Jan / Johan / Johannes
France: Jean (masc) / Jeanne (fem)
Italy: Giovanni
Spain: Juan (masc) Juanita (fem)
Gaelic variants: Sean, Irish / Ewan, Scottish / Evan, Welsh
Slavic: Ivan

etc.
all "John."


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

PetrB said:


> The most popular of the christian disciples names, John, has dozens of permutations, traveling to places where either the alphabet or local speech just did not fully accommodate the sound, and thereby acquiring a variant.
> 
> North Europe: Jon / Jan / Johan / Johannes
> France: Jean (masc) / Jeanne (fem)
> ...


You've forgotten that in Italy there's feminine form as well: Giovanna, rather popular. In Slavic languages too, there's Janina.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Aramis said:


> You've forgotten that in Italy there's feminine form as well: Giovanna, rather popular. In Slavic languages too, there's Janina.


Thank you. I'm sure if someone cared to, we would find that dozens more variants of "John" are here omitted


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Thank you. I'm sure if someone cared to, we would find that dozens more variants of "John" are here omitted


I don't but Wiki does.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Taggart said:


> I don't but Wiki does.


Right now, before I look, I've forgotten also Ian / Iain 

Okeedoh, back again, only to think that that other name game, like Guissepe Verdi = Joe Green or Elizabeth Scharzkopf might be "Betty Blackhead" -- gets us Alan Hovhannes as Al John 

... and there are really really _a lot_ of variants of the name John.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Richard Wagner could be Dick Cartwright.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I find it very sad that we don't hear the word "swell" anymore...


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Not quite what you'd had in mind with your suggestion, but immediately, it made me remember this clever little poem by Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857). Its dainty poetic form is largely lost in a half-prose translation, but the thought could still be worth a moment of reflection:


*Wünschelrute*_*Dowsing Rod*
_Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen
die da träumen fort und fort
Und die Welt hebt an zu singen,
triffst du nur das Zauberwort_Sleeps a song in all things
which there are dreaming forth and forth
And the world commences singing
if you but hit the magic word
_


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Celloman said:


> I find it very sad that we don't hear the word "swell" anymore...


Not enough Cole Porter - probably been banned because of his carbon footprint:

Have you heard? It's in the stars
Next July we collide with Mars.
Well, did you evah?
What a swell party, a swell party
A swelligant, elegant party this is!


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Taggart said:


> Not enough Cole Porter - probably been banned because of his carbon footprint:
> 
> Have you heard? It's in the stars
> Next July we collide with Mars.
> ...


Thou swell! Thou witty! Thou grand!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Not words exactly but symbols. In the US an orange handled and spouted coffee pot or carafe (as opposed to black or brown) means decaffeinated, but when in a package, green means decaf. The real question of course is, why bother with either?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Lovely word links we discovered today. 'Coof' & 'cove'.

I was laughing at these lyrics from Robert Burns' 'A man's a man for a' that':

_Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a *coof* for a' that:_

We looked up 'coof' in our Concise Scots Dictionary (ed. Mairi Robinson, Aberdeen University Press 1985) and got this:
rogue - fool, simpleton - a useless, incompetent person - a feckless person - a lout, a rustic

For the derivation, it says - 'cf early Modern English _cofe_ & English slang _*cove*_'

As in 'a rum cove' and 'three old coves were standing listening' - but in English, it's just funny and neutral, not a criticism.

Speaking for myself, I'm a huge fan of *Glaswegian coves*. :lol:

A birkie, btw, is 'a smart young fellow, a conceited fellow, a sharp-tongued, quick-tempered person, usually a woman'. Interestingly, this word is listed as 'only Scots' - but you have to wonder about the slang word berk, as in Adrian Mole's immortal poem - 
The Tap (Tuesday, 13 January -- _Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 & three quarters_)

The tap drips and keeps me awake,
In the morning there will be a lake.
For the want of a washer the carpet will spoil,
Then for another my father will toil.
My father could snuff it while he is at work.
Dad, fit a washer - don't be a berk!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> We looked up 'coof' in our Concise Scots Dictionary (ed. Mairi Robinson, Aberdeen University Press 1985)...


A propos of this marvellous tome, we were on holiday in a Scottish town - which shall remain nameless - in August 1985, and saw copies of this book in the windows of the local bookshop - which shall remain nameless; we went in to inquire, and found that they were being displayed ahead of the publication date, which was to happen a couple of days after we were due to go home. After a great deal of argument - but no undue *siller* changed hands, honest guv - we persuaded the manager to sell us a copy ahead of the date, provided we kept quiet about it. And I have, until now.

And here is a link to Burns' wonderful song, 'A man's a man for a' that'.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> A birkie, btw, is 'a smart young fellow, a conceited fellow, a sharp-tongued, quick-tempered person, usually a woman'. Interestingly, this word is listed as 'only Scots' - but you have to wonder about the slang word berk


Unfortunately, poor innocent @Ingélou is wrong. Berk is a contraction of a rhyming slang phrase for a rude word. As wiktionary says:



> It is not perceived to be excessively rude, perhaps because, whilst it is known for being a slang word, its origin in rhyming slang is not well known.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Taggart said:


> Unfortunately, poor innocent @Ingélou is wrong. Berk is a contraction of a rhyming slang phrase for a rude word. As wiktionary says:


 :lol: 
----------------------


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

Some UK dialect words with alarming connotations:
Gert lummox (Somerset)
Groaty pudding (West midlands)
Spotted dick (Everywhere!)


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

UK _v._ USA slang:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Just as "Toodle-oo" derives from the French _a tout a l'heure,_

The international verbal distress call _Mayday_ has nothing to do with our May Day, but comes also from the French, _venez m'aider_, (come to help me).

The convention of saying Mayday three times is to distinguish that as the emergency call so there is no confusion with other verbal communication about the emergency (Mayday) call itself.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Sorry for the long post but this poem is amazing. The English language is really odd.


> The Chaos
> by G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946
> 
> Dearest creature in creation
> ...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Celloman said:


> I find it very sad that we don't hear the word "swell" anymore...


Maybe it is just within my family, but along with _Yay_ (as in hurrah), _swell_ is used, but rather like that _yay_ -- it is more in the sardonic or sarcastic than when _Swell_ went right along enthusiastically with _Keen_ and _Neat / neat-o._

I once in a while still answer the "How are you / how is it all going" kind of question with the old standby of _*hunky-dory*_


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

In young person slang (at least where I'm from), to be "up" for something and to be "down" for something are the same thing.

The word "exam" comes from the Latin word "examen", which originally meant "swarm of bees". 

"Tawdry" comes from "St. Audrey". 

"Sycophant" comes from the Greek words for "showing a fig".

Well, that's what popped into my head at the moment


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

And I'm glad it did! Apart from 'tawdry', I knew none of them. Thanks - or should that be 'cheers'? :cheers:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I sometimes wonder why 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' amount to the same thing.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Must record this for the amusement of posterity - we were in a traffic queue today outside Great Yarmouth & Taggart pointed out the name of a firm that dealt with hazardous waste disposal. 
It was on their van: *Augean*! :lol:


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Ingélou said:


> Must record this for the amusement of posterity - we were in a traffic queue today outside Great Yarmouth & Taggart pointed out the name of a firm that dealt with hazardous waste disposal.
> It was on their van: *Augean*! :lol:


You mean that they will dump everything in a river?  :lol:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I've been listening to one of our Planxty LPs & to the story of the colonel who dressed up as a beggar to win the heart of a farmer's daughter. 
*The general bet five thousand pounds
The colonel wouldn't dress up in a beggars gowns,
Would she travel the world around and round,
Would she go with the rambling siúler.
*

In the song, he's called a *siuler* & I wondered what it meant.

Now I know, because someone else asked the same question - fascinating! Thank you, google! 

*This word has mystified me too.
I wasn't able to find any relevant comments in relation to Irish.

But the OED, as usual, has come up trumps. It lists shooler as one who shools. 
For the verb shool:
To go about begging; to sponge, to acquire some advantage by insidious means; also to skulk. ...
In Ireland it seems to have been associated with Irish siubhail to go, travel; shooler seems to correspond to Irish siubhlach vagrant.]
*


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2016)

Ingélou said:


> I love dialect words. My English grandparents were from Staffordshire, and from them I know the words 'baumed' (sticky, like a jam smear), 'flothering' (what long hair does when unkempt), 'manacling' for sewing,and 'nesh' for feeling the cold.


Ooo. I only know of nesh. Maybe the others are from some far-flung foreign region of Staffordshire!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

dogen said:


> Ooo. I only know of nesh. Maybe the others are from some far-flung foreign region of Staffordshire!


Or more likely, they're Victorian dialect words (my granny's dates: 1889-1986) so they've died the death, along with bustles and anti-macassars. No longer cool. 
'Manacle' sounds like facetious Victorian slang.
'Nesh' on the other hand is long established - it's used in Gawain & the Green Knight, fourteenth century, Cheshire dialect - so it's got a longer life.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

:tiphat: Apologies all round *if*...

... because I can't remember whether someone has already mentioned this word, but while trying to find out what *self-sealing stembolts *were used for (after watching an episode of Deep Space Nine) I came across a suggestion that they were merely a *MacGuffin*. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

Lovely word - lovely concept. I wonder if someone can work it into a limerick with a puffin? 

It puts me in mind of another useful word, the *Mondegreen*, though I feel almost certain that someone above must have mentioned it. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

So, as this is a music forum, I shall finish with a link to _The Bonny Earl of Moray_, whence *mondegreen* comes.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

When people stop making sounds, they shut up.
When machines stop making sounds, they shut down.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Has anyone pointed out yet that in the UK the Royal Mail delivers the post, while in the USA the Postal Service delivers the mail?


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