Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I read backwards to page 55 last night, still working my way through, very useful material though

Can I also ask for your forgivness, for prying into history, I did not mean to seem so rude
my sincerest apologies to anyone offended by my curiosity.

Forgive? Forgive? Take that back!

Had I been offended by it, I wouldn't have directed you to it!

Fear not.

OK ok I take it back, only I sometimes get very scared of upsetting people, completely irrational, i know but sometimes covering for mistakes really helps.

Anywho, there's no need to fear you Josh(as far as I know :S)
London traffic is so slow only just got in after leaving 1h 15 mins ago
Does anyone else suffer the tedious blockages caused by Ken bl**dy Livingstone?
And this January weather certainly isn't helping

I learned a lot reading Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue. Piers Plowman - hmm, must chase up that. How interesting.

At the time I seem to remember Bryson commenting that many French words have been absorbed into the English language just as they are, eg "sang-froid" but not many German. Immediately, I thought of quite a few - kindergarten, schadenfreude, blitz - off I go again!

Alan P5age wrote: If you get a chance. Ask your teacher to take you through the original "Piers Plowman". It's a gruelling but fascinating experience as it shows you just how many languages contributed to form the "English" one. Lots of French, German, even Dutch derivations can be found. I think you may find it fascinating. I learned far more, from reading that, about my native language than any Latin I did.

Hi, Alan

You mention Dutch (I presume as an example) which is close to being a dialect of low German but there are infinitely more langauges involved. As examples:

Tsunami (Japanese)
Robot (Czech, though I have also heard Russian)
Marmalade (Portuguese)
Kirk (Viking / Norwegian, probably from German)
Fell (Viking, Norwegian)
Gate (street as in Kirkgate in York) (again Viking/ Norwegian) (half of the old Yorkshire is in the Norwegian dictionary)
Bank, bond, bankrupt (Italian)
The current meaning of billion is American, having been changed from the old English meaning about 20 - 25 years ago

The village in England where I live had its present name in the Domesday book - half of the name is mis-spelt French because back in those days the language of educated people in England was French

I'm sure linguists will add many other languages to this list

So interesting, it deserves a thread of its own!

David, I was fascinated that you identify "marmalade" as derived from Portuguese.

Somewhere I have an old cookery book which claims that marmalade was made for an ailing Mary Queen of Scots and was called "marmalade" from "Marie est malade". I always thought that was pretty far-fetched!

sejintenej wrote:
Marmalade (Portuguese)

According to that well know linguist Sir Michael Caine, marmalade is a corruption of the cry 'Ma'am est malade' as cried by Mary Queen of Scots' minions as they ran to the kitchen to grab a Vitamin C-rich pot of the stuff to make poor Mary better.

xx

Angela Woodford wrote:So interesting, it deserves a thread of its own!

David, I was fascinated that you identify "marmalade" as derived from Portuguese.

Somewhere I have an old cookery book which claims that marmalade was made for an ailing Mary Queen of Scots and was called "marmalade" from "Marie est malade". I always thought that was pretty far-fetched!

Sorry Munch, I didn't see your post before posting my reply to David.

The final episode of Parky was screened here on Saturday night, and Michael Caine gave the 'Ma'am est malade' explanation.

I did think that any well bought up minion would have yelled 'Madame est malade', and I have a feeling that Vitamin C is heat sensitive, so I'm not sure how much survives the cooking process. I do have to say, however, that even my marmalade is like a little pot of sunshine - especially the stuff that I made from organic blood oranges from the Uni orchard. Sadly we've been banned from picking the fruit because a bunch of Japanese tourists decided to help themselves to some fruit, but weren't aware of which trees were being used for experimental purposes, and stuffed up two years of someone's research

Angela Woodford wrote:So interesting, it deserves a thread of its own!

David, I was fascinated that you identify "marmalade" as derived from Portuguese.

Somewhere I have an old cookery book which claims that marmalade was made for an ailing Mary Queen of Scots and was called "marmalade" from "Marie est malade". I always thought that was pretty far-fetched!

I hadn't heard the one about Mary Queen of Scots - would servants have spoken French at that time?

I actually got this one wrong in a pub quiznight many many years ago which is why I remembered it. Just checked my Collins Dictionary which gives the derivation from Marmelo (Portuguese - a quince) and there is some Old French connection and they even invoke Greek. Bit puzzled about this because a quince in French is Coing.

French the language of Britain; brought over by William the Conquerer. Several ogenerations later the English King still only spoke French (not even Latin) according to French sources.

Bungalow (Indian)

I've lost the plot...
What does an Indian bungalow have to do with the provenance of the word 'marmalade' (on a thread about a Deputy Grecian)....

kerrensimmonds wrote:I've lost the plot...
What does an Indian bungalow have to do with the provenance of the word 'marmalade' (on a thread about a Deputy Grecian)....

It's a foreign word in usage in our vocabulary. Mango chutney is similiar to marmalade.

sejintenej wrote:I hadn't heard the one about Mary Queen of Scots - would servants have spoken French at that time?

I'm trying to rub together a few brain cells... Mary's mother was French - Mary of Guise - the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland - Mary an arranged marriage with French Dauphin Francois?? - spends youth in France - on return to Scotland has own little Fr speaking court - fave-ladies-in-attendance the four Marys - devout RCs??

Indian words that spring to mind - curry, mulligatawny, jodhpurs, pukka -

'm bad. I'm , sorry!

Surely, 'mugged' is derived form the Hindi word for crocodile ?

As is 'thug' from Thugi, (sp?), an indian bandit who used to use a form of garotte to muder their victims