Seldom-used words - M to A

oggbashan said:

From the Wikipedia article about the Green Children:

The girl adjusted to her new life, but she was considered to be "rather loose and wanton in her conduct".

She sounds an ideal person for Literotica.

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Her spirit lives on somewhere round here, I'm sure

Handley_Page said:

Her spirit lives on somewhere round here, I'm sure

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One of the interesting things about the official version of the legend is that it is said she married a man from Kings Lynn. In medieval times the people of Kings Lynn were considered to be even less intelligent than the rest of Norfolk yokels, so only someone from there would marry an alien girl who was 'rather loose and wanton'.

The people of Kings Lynn were, as usual with such local calumnies, not as stupid as they appeared to be. Whenever the taxmen arrived the Kings Lynn folk pretended they were too thick and incompetent to earn enough to pay taxes (while smuggling was rife). The townspeople were actually well off by contemporary standards. It helped that they were avoiding taxes.

Og, playing dumb has reaped many rewards over the years. My first thought always goes to Jean Harlow, who played the first dumb, bleached-blonde bombshell in Hollywood movies. She was, in reality, a very smart woman, like Gracie Allen, wife of George Burns. I'm sure it goes back even further than jesters in royal courts, but how far, I'm not sure.

lanner - noun (14c) a falcon of southern Europe, southwestern Asia, and Africa: specif: a female lanner

AllardChardon said:

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lanner - noun (14c) a falcon of southern Europe, southwestern Asia, and Africa: specif: a female lanner

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanner_falcon

One grumpy lanner:



Not to be confused with the lammergeier (bearded vulture):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_vulture

oggbashan said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanner_falcon

One grumpy lanner:

Not to be confused with the lammergeier (bearded vulture):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_vulture

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There is an heraldic hierarchy in the sport of hawking and falconry, one version of which is listed in 'The Boke of St Albans' from sometime in the 1480's, setting out who can fly what, as follows:

Emperor: Eagle, merlin
King: Gyr falcon and the tercel of the gyr falcon
Prince: Falcon gentle and the tercel gentle
Duke: Falcon of the loch
Earl: Peregrine falcon
Baron: Bustard (this may be a mistranslation of the French Busard a Kestrel, or a
'bastard Hawk, meaning one of unknown lineage, a bustard itself is a game bird.)
Knight: Sacre and the sacret
Esquire: Lanner and the lanneret
Lady: Marlyon (merlin?)
Young man: Hobby
Yeoman: Goshawk
Poor man: Tercel
Priest: Sparrowhawk
Holy water clerk: Musket
Knave or servant: Kestrel

This list is neither definitive nor taken seriously by serious falconers, it being regarded as a fanciful concoction created by someone who knew very little about the actual sport of hawking. I'm not sure what a tercel is, possibly a goshawk, and saker's ('sacre & sacrets') were imported and very expensive, so it's unlikely belted knights, who were titled but seldom wealthy, would have been able to afford one. Hawking in general was regarded as the province of the rich, so a poor man in this context is probably a very minor landowner; a genuine poor man, a peasant, caught hawking would most likely have been tried and hanged or mutilated for poaching.

Following on from this, and according to Terry Pratchett, people like HP, Ogg and myself would probably rate a chicken on a spring...

beachbum1958 said:

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Following on from this, and according to Terry Pratchett, people like HP, Ogg and myself would probably rate a chicken on a spring...

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I think we might be rated for dodos - flightless and extinct birds.

beachbum1958 said:

I'm not sure what a tercel is…

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From the on-line dictionary that my iMac consults without telling me what it's up to:

The traditional term for a male falcon is tercel (British spelling) or tiercel (American spelling), from the Latin tertius (third) because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a male falcon is about one-third smaller than a female[5][6][7] (Old French tiercelet).

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CarlusMagnus said:

From the on-line dictionary that my iMac consults without telling me what it's up to:

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I take it back—I missed the machine's attribution to Wikipedia.

Very amusing, gentlemen.

Thank you, beachbum, for the list of predator birds and who is supposed to use them. Of course, I had no idea, there was a hierarchy for the birds, as well as their owners.

Thank you, Og, for the beautiful pictures and links.

I thought the first definition of this word was all there was;

lank - adj (before 12c) 1. not well filled out; SLENDER, THIN <~ cattle> 2. insufficient in quantity, degree, or extent 3. hanging straight and limp without spring and curl

The last definition sounds like it's referring to hair, but I suppose it could be used for ruffles on starched shirts. Something like this - The heavy mist in the air made the ladies curls and the men's ruffled shirts quite lank in a matter of minutes.

Greetings, everyone.

I like the sound of these two related words;

languor - noun (14c) 1. weakness or weariness of body or mind 2. listless indolence or inertia

languorous - adj (15c) 1. producing or tending to produce languor <a ~ climate> 2. full of or characterized by languor

When I was in Tennessee during the hot and humid summer, I experienced a languorous climate. It gets hot here in the mountains in the summer, but it's a dry heat, and that makes a world of difference.

Greetings, posters and readers;

langue d'oc - noun (1703) [from French: the Occitan use of the word oc for "yes"]: OCCITAN

langue d’oïl - noun (1703) [from French: the French use of the word oïl for "yes"]: FRENCH

AllardChardon said:

Greetings, posters and readers;

langue d'oc - noun (1703) [from French: the Occitan use of the word oc for "yes"]: OCCITAN

langue d’oïl - noun (1703) [from French: the French use of the word oïl for "yes"]: FRENCH

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Both have significant cultural associations that are still strongly felt today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan_language

Langue d'oc was considered to include Catalan and that spreads between France and Spain;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language

French speaking Catalan speakers use Langue d'oc or speak Spanish.

Langue d'oil covers what is now standard French:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_d'oïl

But there are also Basque speakers who are neither:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques

And Bretons who speak Breton, linguistically linked to Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_language

French speaking Bretons use Langue d'oil

Confused?

I haven't mentioned Llanito yet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanito

Speaking the wrong version in some places identifies you as a foreigner and is usually considered the sign of a rural hick.

oggbashan said:

Both have significant cultural associations that are still strongly felt today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan_language

Langue d'oc was considered to include Catalan and that spreads between France and Spain;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language

French speaking Catalan speakers use Langue d'oc or speak Spanish.

Langue d'oil covers what is now standard French:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_d'oïl

But there are also Basque speakers who are neither:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques

And Bretons who speak Breton, linguistically linked to Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_language

French speaking Bretons use Langue d'oil

Confused?

I haven't mentioned Llanito yet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanito

Speaking the wrong version in some places identifies you as a foreigner and is usually considered the sign of a rural hick.

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I spent some time in Provence two or three years ago, much of it with a man who spoke a dialect of Occitan—of which there are several, Provençal, Catalan, and others. (I never found out which dialect he spoke.) Occitan is a Romance language, spoken in parts of Spain, France, Italy, and even Switzerland. It was the birth language of Eleanor of Aquitane. In spite of their resemblance, there doesn't seem to be any connection between the word "Aquitane" and the word "Occitan", the latter coming, as Ogg has noted, from the language's word "oc" (hard "c") for "yes".

Basque, on the other hand, is very definitely not a romance language, and, in fact, its origins are lost in the mists of time: it doesn't seem to be related to any other known language, living or dead, and no one knows where it came from. A linguist once told me that, although there is no real linguistic connection, Basque uses exactly the same phonemes as modern Japanese.

My Occitan friend told me that, just as with the Basques, there is separatist pressure in Occitania (or, the Languedoc—this name for the language being also used as a name for the region where it is spoken). It is probably not as serious as that among the Basques, but many Occitans of France do want to separate from that nation.

Where that (Occitexit? Exitan? Occitaller?) would leave Europe and the European union is anyone's guess.

Og and Carlus, thank you for giving me a better understanding of the languages discussed. I keep wondering what it would be like if the "Gods" decided not to confuse the languages and just let us talk to each other all over the world.

langlauf - noun (1927) - cross-country running or racing on skis

CarlusMagnus said:

I spent some time in Provence two or three years ago, much of it with a man who spoke a dialect of Occitan—of which there are several, Provençal, Catalan, and others. (I never found out which dialect he spoke.) Occitan is a Romance language, spoken in parts of Spain, France, Italy, and even Switzerland. It was the birth language of Eleanor of Aquitane. In spite of their resemblance, there doesn't seem to be any connection between the word "Aquitane" and the word "Occitan", the latter coming, as Ogg has noted, from the language's word "oc" (hard "c") for "yes".

Basque, on the other hand, is very definitely not a romance language, and, in fact, its origins are lost in the mists of time: it doesn't seem to be related to any other known language, living or dead, and no one knows where it came from. A linguist once told me that, although there is no real linguistic connection, Basque uses exactly the same phonemes as modern Japanese.

My Occitan friend told me that, just as with the Basques, there is separatist pressure in Occitania (or, the Languedoc—this name for the language being also used as a name for the region where it is spoken). It is probably not as serious as that among the Basques, but many Occitans of France do want to separate from that nation.

Where that (Occitexit? Exitan? Occitaller?) would leave Europe and the European union is anyone's guess.

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Addenda:

1. Categorization of Catalan as a dialect of Occitan is somewhat controversial: accepted by many scholars but also rejected by many.

2. Basque is thought by many to survive from a tribal tongue that predated the Indo-European incursion. However, the only pieces of evidence for this are that it is clearly not Indo-European, and that no one can say, definitively, where it came from.

CarlusMagnus said:

Addenda:

1. Categorization of Catalan as a dialect of Occitan is somewhat controversial: accepted by many scholars but also rejected by many.

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That's why I wrote 'was considered'.

Is the Cornish language treated in the same way ?

Handley_Page said:

Is the Cornish language treated in the same way ?

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I'm not sure what you mean by your question. The same way as what?

Cornish is a Celtic language, related to Breton and Welsh. In particular, as a Celtic language, it's an Indo-European language. However, it's rather far from being a Romance language. And, to my knowedge, there's no Cornish separatist movement, but I could certainly be wrong about that—I live in the wrong English-speaking land to know.

CarlusMagnus said:

I'm not sure what you mean by your question. The same way as what?

Cornish is a Celtic language, related to Breton and Welsh. In particular, as a Celtic language, it's an Indo-European language. However, it's rather far from being a Romance language. And, to my knowedge, there's no Cornish separatist movement, but I could certainly be wrong about that—I live in the wrong English-speaking land to know.

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Ah, right.
There is a sort-of Cornish separatist thing, but, last time I enquired, it wasn't quite in the same league as "the sons of Glydowr," as once found in parts of Wales.

Handley_Page said:

Ah, right.
There is a sort-of Cornish separatist thing, but, last time I enquired, it wasn't quite in the same league as "the sons of Glydowr," as once found in parts of Wales.

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The Cornish Separatist Annual General Meeting could be held in a bus shelter. There are NO people who speak Cornish as their main language. There haven't been monoglot Cornish speakers for over 100 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_speaker_of_the_Cornish_language

oggbashan said:

The Cornish Separatist Annual General Meeting could be held in a bus shelter. There are NO people who speak Cornish as their main language. There haven't been monoglot Cornish speakers for over 100 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_speaker_of_the_Cornish_language

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Thanks, Ogg.
It's obviously changed since I was down there, then.

Handley_Page said:

Thanks, Ogg.
It's obviously changed since I was down there, then.

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There are people who want devolution for Cornwall but NOT separation. They rely on the grockles for income.

oggbashan said:

There are people who want devolution for Cornwall but NOT separation. They rely on the grockles for income.

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I understood that 'grockle' was used in single & plural (that's how my first Ex told me, anyway)
However, I wonder about some of what is now considered dialect. What was the language of, say, Elmet or of those down round the Black Country.

Handley_Page said:

I understood that 'grockle' was used in single & plural (that's how my first Ex told me, anyway)
However, I wonder about some of what is now considered dialect. What was the language of, say, Elmet or of those down round the Black Country.

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In the mid 1960s in Devon (and Cornwall) I heard it rarely used as grockle (singular) and grockles (plural) but emmet and emmets were more usual. Emmet = ant. Tourist (damn emmets!) swarmed everywhere blocking the local roads - particularly the then unimproved A38 - and filling local beaches.

oggbashan said:

In the mid 1960s in Devon (and Cornwall) I heard it rarely used as grockle (singular) and grockles (plural) but emmet and emmets were more usual. Emmet = ant. Tourist (damn emmets!) swarmed everywhere blocking the local roads - particularly the then unimproved A38 - and filling local beaches.

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Emmet is a new one on me