What I Learned: Etymology

I have been listening to Don't Know Much About History while doing my long runs lately, and there have been a few interesting tidbits that I have learned from it. Actually, there have been a lot of different things I have learned, relearned or remembered, and of course they are all very interesting and very educational and I can just feel myself getting smarter by the day.

However, there were a few interesting factoids that I had no idea about, and actually never thought to question them! For example, do you know where the word "sideburns" comes from?

Sideburns were first called "Burnsides", after a civil war general named Ambrose Burnside, who, as you can see below, had a pretty nice display of facial hair.

source

I also found out why "booze" is so named. It's from the Dutch word būsen, which means "to drink to excess". However, DKMAH states that it was given it's name due to a man named E. C. Booz, who was a distiller in the United States in the 19th century.

Do you know the game "rock, paper, scissors"? Do you ever call it Ro-Sham-Bo? We do. However, I never knew that there was a man named Rochambeau who was a French nobleman who participated in the revolutionary war. 

Do you ever wonder where certain words came from? Or why some things are called different words, even throughout the US? My mom's family is from Back East and they have some weird words for things, as well as pronounciations.

For instance:

Bubbler / drinking fountain
Pocketbook / purse
Cabinets / cupboard

Or there is always the coke, pop, soda debate. 

Why is that? And what do YOU call it?

What information have you learned lately that made you say "hmm"? What weird words do your friends and relatives say that make you giggle? Did you know where the word sideburns originated?

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Really?

Did you know?

In Australia, they don't have the Easter bunny, they have the BILBY:

In Chocolate (source)

Normal View (source)

They also call a walk around the block a BLOCKIE.

A TRAVELER is when you take a beer to go on the walk to the next place.

Your SUNNIES are your sun glasses.

BREKKIE is breakfast.

An ESKIE is a cooler/ice chest.

SUSS means something that is suspect.

A STUBBIE is a small or short beer. 

To say "hello" they say "HOW YA GOIN'?"

They really do say G'DAY and MATE.

If you SHOUT a round of drinks, you are buying a round.

Of course there are still the "normal" sayings like "Do you reckon?" and "I have to go to the loo".

We got into a long discussion with my (Ozzie) friend about "BISCUITS". In the US, they are served with gravy; in Australia, this is the equivalent of a cookie. Their equivalent of our biscuit is a SCONE. (our scone is another matter entirely! Not the same as their scone!) You can find Australian biscuit recipes here.  

So, I guess that after having BREKKIE, you can get a TRAVELER out of the ESKIE, put on your SUNNIES and do a BLOCKIE. 

But I reckon that is a little ambitious. 

R is for "Really". You can see more A-Z blogfest here.  

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Greek English

source

"Would you like a biscuit with your tea?", she asks. I am a little bit confused at first. I wonder, what kind of biscuit is she talking about? Is it a bisquick biscuit? If so, why isn't there any butter on the table? Is it a corn muffin perhaps? Maybe she is talking about a cracker. I am not sure, so I say, "yes please."

The last thing I expected her to hand me is a chocolate bar, wrapped in it's little plastic wrapping. It's similar to a Snickers bar and I look down at it thinking, "what the heck am I supposed to do with this? Aren't we about to have dinner?"

This happens a lot when you are traveling. You misunderstand people all the time. However, you would think that since we speak the same language as the British, we would understand each other better. But sometimes this is not the case. Sometimes the English (aka British) are speaking Greek.

Below are a few words you may want to know before you go to the British Isles.

- The first one I learned, and you probably know this one, is pissed. No, I am not mad at you, I am drunk!

- "us" -- this does NOT always mean more than one person. An example -- A- "give us a call later on". Me - "oh, who will you be with?" A - "I will be by myself". Me - "huh?"

- Biscuit - this can actually be a chocolate bar, a cookie or a bunch of other things, but they are always sweet. Don't be fooled. You will probably be getting cake, so get ready.

- Tea - this doesn't always refer to the drink. It refers to dinner. If someone says, "do you want to meet me for tea?" this means, "do you want to meet me for dinner?" The act of drinking tea IS included but it is not the only thing that will be happening.

- Cracker - Nope, not a Saltine. This means "excellent", as in "that party last night was a cracker." This also means "foxy" in terms of a woman, as in "whoa, that Sally is a cracker!" (aka "she's HOT!")

- Slapper - Basically the opposite of cracker. This is a woman who is a slut. However, I have an Irish friend who basically uses it as a term of endearment. I am not sure if other people do that or not. This is not a very nice thing to call someone.

- Fanny Pack - Do not say this in Scotland, as a Fanny is a bad word for a womans privates. They will look at you really funny, and I found this out first hand. You should  call it a Bum Bag. Just so you know. (ps by the way, the P word for a lady's bits is conversly okay to say there. It means Cat, and nothing more).

- Have kids? Do you have a babby? Or a bairn? To be honest I am not completely sure of the difference, but I think babby is younger than bairn.

- Some Foods: courgette = zucchini, coriander = cilantro, capsicum = bell pepper

- Some with moving parts: lorry = big truck, trolley = shopping basket, spanner = wrench

- In Scotland you may be confused about your Pants. That's becuase Pants means Underpants, and Trousers are what we would consider pants. Underpants are also referred to as Knickers.

Of course there are hundreds more, but I can't think of them all right now. For more information about weird words in British English, you can check out this site. Here are a few I found there that I hadn't know about before that are pretty funny.

- cabbaged Adj. 1. Intoxicated, by alcohol or drugs, to a state of uselessness. From being in a vegetative state. 2. Exhausted, extremely tired.

- septic or seppo Noun. A person from the U.S.A.. From the rhyming slang septic tank meaning Yank.

After looking around that site, it is a little bit lewd, so excuse me for that. However there are several non-lewd funny ones (as well as, if you are looking for them, several lewd funny ones!)

I have one last thing to add as a sidenote. When I was in China, I heard all the Chinese saying the N word! All the time!! You know which one I am talking about. THE "N" WORD. So I finally looked it up, and apparently "niga" means "that" in Chinese!! Imagine how many times a day you say "that!" They were dropping N bombs all over the place!

Do you have any to add? Are there words that you have heard and just thought, "huh?!" Have you ever been confused in a foreign country? Are there any English folks out there who think the Yanks talk funny?

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South Africa Rules (and Lists)

Some words you may hear that are a little weird:
1. Lekker - this means "cool"
2. Izzit (Is it?) - this doesn't really mean Is It, it kind of means "oh really?", so if you say, "today I am flying to India." they will say, "izzit?"
3. Howzit (how is it) - the same as above, this doesn't always mean "how is it". It means "hi" or "how you doing" or like we would say "whats up".
4. Bekkie - this is a pickup truck, like a toyota 4 runner.
5. Braii - this is a BBQ. They have a curly sausage they call Braiiwoerst.
6. "too much" - they use this in place of "too many" or just "too". For example, "its too much sunny" or "too much slow" or "too much elephants". 

Traffic rules and oddities:
1. Everyone gets over to the breakdown lane to let you pass. So essentially, all roads are two lane with a mini breakdown lane, so are used as if they are three or four lanes.
2. If someone let's you pass, you flash your hazards at them to say thanks. Sometimes you get a headlight flash as a "you're welcome".
3. Robot - this is what they call a traffic light.
4. If the coast is clear for passing, a big rig will signal with his blinker. I have seen this in the US once in a while, but it is so helpful when you cant see around them.
5. When you drive on the left, your windshield wipers and blinkers are opposite. You end  up wiping the windows a lot before turning.
6. The Car Guard - when you park your car a man "guards" it for you. You have to tip him for this service. If you don't pay him, it feels like he may just accidentally "not" guard your car. Kind of a catch 22.

...to be continued...

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Word Play

It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about, but I wanted to branch out, to write about something other than travel, food or weather. Yup, most of my blogs are about one of those three topics, either directly or indirectly. So, I thought, why not get some suggestions from someone else, to see if I can write about something else, or if the things that interest me, namely eating, traveling and commenting on the weather, really are the only thing I can elaborate on. Also, researching/finding out about new things is one of my favorite things to do and this will give me knowledge about things that I may not have known about before.

My inspiration comes from Aunt Lucy, who tipped me off about the  Shutter Sisters, who are photographers who are doing a project called The One Word Project. They give you a word every month and you send in photos associated with that word and they post a photo a day from someone who has sent one in. If you get a chance to check out their site, do so, it is very fun. Lucy is also doing a project where she takes photos of things with words on them and posts one every day, which is also really interesting (check it out here). So I guess 2010 is the year of the word.

I will take their idea and add a twist – I am asking people to send ME “one word”, whatever comes to their mind. Once a month I will write about one of the words that have been sent to me. Obviously, I am not going to steal the Shutter Sister’s name or project, so this will be the Word Play project. (Version 2k10). –

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What exactly is a "Tchoupitoulas" anyway?

One of the things in New Orleans that is really strange to me is the spelling and pronounciation of Street, City and Parish (county) names. There are several names that I could never figure out how to pronounce if not for a little help from some of the locals. I decided to find out a little bit more about what these words meant. Below are a few examples.

Plaquemine (Plack a min), a parish and bayou. From the Mobilian (Indian) word "piakimin", which means persimmon.Tchoupitoulas (chop a too les), a street in New Orleans and a French settlement outside of N.O. at one time. The name of an extinct Indian tribe. Also means "River People".

Calliope Street (Cal' i ope) (The "ope" said like nope--no "e" heard) Don't ask where "Cal-lie-o-pea" is, nobody will understand what street you're looking for!
Carondelet St.- not pronounced like the French (cor on do ley), but instead the T is pronounced.
Burgundy St.- seems easy right? We all know how to pronounce this. But wait - there is a stress on the UN, so intead of "burg andy" it is "burg UN dy". I wonder how they say caramel.Marigny (mar in knee)- Got its name from Frenchman, Bernard Marigny who introduced craps to the US. Faubourg Marigny is considered the first suburb of New Orleans. The Marigny neighborhood is a maze of angular streets that form triangles, pentagons and squares. Numbers jump their sequence mid-block and so do street names. Spanish, French Creoles, Italians, Germans, Irish and many free persons of color were among the first ethnic inhabitants to live in this section of the city.
Pontchatrain- the lake was named after Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, the French Minister of the Marine, chancellor of France and minister of finance during the reign of France's "Sun King," Louis XIV, for whom Louisiana is named.

For more info, go to: http://www.experienceneworleans.com/glossary.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_orleans

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