Word of the day

[Katharine]

Taxi is Tacsi in Welsh and Teksi in Malay, ice cream in Malay is ais krim.

It's amazing how words travel around the world.
Seeing Malaysian ais krim, which is perfectly understandable, reminds me of Aply Pay in Panama (Apple Pie), except that you could get Aply Pay de Manzana (Apple "apple" Pie), Aply Pay de melocoton (Peach Pie), etc.
In El Salvador the Night watchman was known an reported in the newspaper as guatchiman.
And so it goes on.

Both Malay and Welsh take words from English that they didn't have before. Malay for pineapple however (nanas) surely comes from the French ananas.

[Katharine]

My new word of the day is helminthologist. I came across it in the History of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine I am reading, and had to look it up. It is someone who studies worms, and comes from Greek. I didn't learn that at school. Presumably in this case they would be parasite worms and not good news for the host.

[Richard Ruck]

So someone who eats worms would be a helminthophage, I suppose....

Yuk.

[englishangel]

I knew that.

A platyhelminth is a flat worm, which never dies of old age, only dies an accidental death, it is used in research on gerontology, the study of old age.

Do you know I haven't even thought about any of that since I left university.

[jtaylor]

Discombobulate - To throw into a state of confusion

[englishangel]

Discombobulate - To throw into a state of confusion

In my case it is permanent.

[Katharine]

Discombobulate - To throw into a state of confusion

In my case it is permanent.

However, you CAN still remember your birthday!!

[Richard Ruck]

Culinary word of the day.....

sancoche

• noun [mass noun] (in South America and the Caribbean) a thick soup consisting of meat and root vegetables.

— origin from Latin American Spanish sancocho ‘a stew’.

One day they'll get back to unusual English words (maybe)......

[jhopgood]

Forgotten English
Screevers
Writers of false or exaggerated accounts of afflictions and privation.... professional begging letter writers. Persons who write begging letters for others sometimes, though seldom, beg themselves. They are, in many cases, well supported by the fratenity for whom they write. A professional of this kind is called by the cadgers their "man of business."
Their histories vary as much as their abilities; generally speaking, they have been clerks, teachers, shopmen, reduced gentlemen, or the illegitimate sons of members of the aristocracy; while others, after receiving a liberal education, have broken away from parental control and commenced the profession in early life, and will probably pursue it to their graves.
-Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, 1861

So the next time they contact you, you know what to call them.

[Richard Ruck]

theomachy

• noun (pl. theomachies) a war or struggle against God or among or against the gods.

— origin late 16th cent. (denoting fighting against God): from Greek theomakhia, from theos ‘god’ + -makhia ‘fighting’.

[jtaylor]

Why do "Broken Up" and "Broken Down" mean the same thing?

There is apparantly a difference between "Flammable" and "InFlammable" - one relating to vapour-phase ignition, the other to liquid ignition??

There was a comment in my local rag at Christmas that people should be careful over christmas, and it they have an open fire they should us an "Inflammable" fire-guard......overtime for the fire-brigade!

J

[Richard Ruck]

Here's today's :

notitia

• noun - a register or list of ecclesiastical sees or districts.

— origin early 18th cent.: from Latin, literally ‘knowledge’, later ‘list or account’, from notus ‘known’.

And I thought it was the name of a character from Up Pompeii...........

[englishangel]

Here's today's :

notitia

• noun - a register or list of ecclesiastical sees or districts.

— origin early 18th cent.: from Latin, literally ‘knowledge’, later ‘list or account’, from notus ‘known’.

And I thought it was the name of a character from Up Pompeii...........

A flat-chested one?

[Richard Ruck]

Of course!

But then I don't suppose there were any flat-chested ladies in Up Pompeii.

[englishangel]

I don't remember any, but then I wasn't an adolescent boy.