Seldom-used words - M to A

[oggbashan]

...

To compound it, Will's daughter is adept at something called the 'Hant Tant Tothery', which is an archaic (probably Brythonic) counting language still prevalent in parts of the county, but especially in the West and South. When she was younger, she and her school friends used to use it around me deliberately, knowing I couldn't follow what they were saying, and I still hear it being used in the local village stores by some of the older residents. We have a place in Lincolnshire, near the East coast, and I hear the older locals speaking something very similar whenever I have to go up there.

You mean Yan Tan Tethera and its variants:

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

My parents and their siblings were born as Cockneys. All of them were educated to speak Standard English but my youngest uncle, who was (among other things) a market trader in the East End of London, used to speak in proper Cockney just to annoy his older brothers.

Real Cockney is nothing like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Although rhyming slang is part of it some of the words have obscure origins.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

You mean Yan Tan Tethera and its variants:

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

My parents and their siblings were born as Cockneys. All of them were educated to speak Standard English but my youngest uncle, who was (among other things) a market trader in the East End of London, used to speak in proper Cockney just to annoy his older brothers.

Real Cockney is nothing like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Although rhyming slang is part of it some of the words have obscure origins.

That Wikipedia article refers to vigesimal (base twenty, that is) enumeration. Vestiges of vigesimal enumeration remain in standard English: Consider the words eleven and twelve. There is the possibility, I suppose, that those two words are remnants of duodecimal enumeration, which also still persists—dozen and gross.

 

[beachbum1958]

You mean Yan Tan Tethera and its variants:

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

My parents and their siblings were born as Cockneys. All of them were educated to speak Standard English but my youngest uncle, who was (among other things) a market trader in the East End of London, used to speak in proper Cockney just to annoy his older brothers.

Real Cockney is nothing like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Although rhyming slang is part of it some of the words have obscure origins.

Yan tan tethera is the Cumbrian variant and pronunciation; I know this because my first wife, my daughter's mother, was from the area around Borrowdale, from a sheep-farming family; the pronunciation Lori gave is correct for Oxfordshire and parts of Dorset and the southwest - I hear it every day from the tradesmen (slaters, stonemasons, and thatchers) working at our place here in Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, people who spend a lot of time counting and measuring materials.

To me, it sounds an awful lot like Kernewek, or Breton, but that may just be because I only have a passing familiarity with the language. I remember how confused Lori was when she first came to England; as far as she knew, everyone only spoke English, and it was quite a shock for her to discover there are several distinct languages (not dialects) spoken here in the British Isles.

 

[oggbashan]

That Wikipedia article refers to vigesimal (base twenty, that is) enumeration. Vestiges of vigesimal enumeration remain in standard English: Consider the words eleven and twelve. There is the possibility, I suppose, that those two words are remnants of duodecimal enumeration, which also still persists—dozen and gross.

When I was younger at school and later, duodecimal enumeration was common because of our money:

Before 15 February 1971:

Twelve pennies made a shilling; twenty-four halfpennies made a shlling; or forty-eight farthings made a shilling. Farthings were already defunct before 1971.

The next coins were:
- a threepenny bit "Thruppence" - 80 to a pound.
- sixpence "Tanner" - 40 to a pound.
- shilling "Bob" - 20 to a pound.
- Two shilling or Florin - 10 to a pound.
- Half Crown (Two shillings and sixpence) - 8 to a pound.
- Crown = Five shillings - 4 to a pound although only issued for special occasions (1951 Festival of Britain, 1953 Coronation) and rarely used as general currency.

The Banknotes normally seen were Ten Shillings; One Pound and Five Pounds.

But we used other money as well. A Groat = 4 pennies was given by the Monarch on Maundy Sunday as part of a set of Maundy Money to aged pensioners.

Shops, especially women's fashions and electrical goods, used Guineas for prices. A Guinea was a no longer existing gold coin with a face value of 1 pound and 1 shilling. 50 Guineas seemed less than 55 Pounds - but wasn't.

When I used to play three card brag with my mates in the local public house the largest possible single raise of a stake was a third of a guinea = seven shillings.

We soon learned how to do sums with 12 pennies to a shilling.

 

[oggbashan]

...

Local idiom contains a lot of archaic words and word combinations, and when my patients come to see me it's not unusual for me to go and get Will and ask him to reframe it in Queen's English - he can do that because he's a doctor too, so no patient confidentiality is breached. My poor secretary is German, so she has even less luck at deciphering what they're saying than I do.

...

My sister-in-law used to work as a Doctor's Receptionist in rural Suffolk. She still helps out at times of crisis even though she technically retired years ago.

She was very useful because her children learned Broad Suffolk in their school's playground and taught Mum. But in recent years her extensive language skills have been even more in demand.

When she met my brother she was a trilingual Secretary working for the UN in Geneva. Her three languages were supposed to be French, German and Italian but of course she was English, born and educated partly in India so she could be a Secretary in English and some Indian languages as well.

She had worked in West Africa before Geneva, so was competent in some West African languages and Arabic.

In Geneva she had the opportunity to add more languages by UN sponsored courses or by interaction with other secretaries so she added:

Russian, Polish, Spanish, some Portuguese, some Mandarin and some Cantonese.

Now there are significant numbers of foreign farm workers around the village, Polish builders etc, her language skills are very useful for the Doctor's surgery. She can usually find at least one language in common with the patient.

She's fantastic. My wife and I are in awe of my sister-in-law's language skills.

To add to my jealousy: She qualified as a Cordon-Bleu chef and always looks elegant and sophisticated even when gardening. She (and my late brother) ran most of the village organisations for decades.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

My sister-in-law used to work as a Doctor's Receptionist in rural Suffolk. She still helps out at times of crisis even though she technically retired years ago.

She was very useful because her children learned Broad Suffolk in their school's playground and taught Mum. But in recent years her extensive language skills have been even more in demand.

When she met my brother she was a trilingual Secretary working for the UN in Geneva. Her three languages were supposed to be French, German and Italian but of course she was English, born and educated partly in India so she could be a Secretary in English and some Indian languages as well.

She had worked in West Africa before Geneva, so was competent in some West African languages and Arabic.

In Geneva she had the opportunity to add more languages by UN sponsored courses or by interaction with other secretaries so she added:

Russian, Polish, Spanish, some Portuguese, some Mandarin and some Cantonese.

Now there are significant numbers of foreign farm workers around the village, Polish builders etc, her language skills are very useful for the Doctor's surgery. She can usually find at least one language in common with the patient.

She's fantastic. My wife and I are in awe of my sister-in-law's language skills.

To add to my jealousy: She qualified as a Cordon-Bleu chef and always looks elegant and sophisticated even when gardening. She (and my late brother) ran most of the village organisations for decades.

It's my good fortune to be married to a polyglot, even though he never makes anything of it, and hardly ever demonstrates his language skills; he's useful to have around on overseas trips, though, because I never know whether or not he knows the local language or dialect; usually he does, which is always a bonus! My own woeful language skills are limited to English and Cajun French, and a smattering of Spanish. Will, on the other hand, because of his extensive service over nearly 20 years years with Médecins Sans Frontiéres and HALO, the Landmine Trust, plus 5 years seconded to the British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan has built up a bank of probably 9 or 10 obscure languages from the remote corners of the world, although he's constantly surprising me with new ones, or ones I didn't know he knew.

He's one of those lucky people with an ear for languages, and to my certain knowledge he's a fluent Arabic, Farsi and Pashtun speaker, he can make himself understood in Hokkien and Mandarin, speaks Cambodian Khmer fluently, with some facility with Kuy, Jarai, and Vietnamese Tieng Viet, from his time with the land-mine clearance teams, and can gabble away in Papuan Motu and Tok Pisin, the PNG version of Pidgin English, as he's spent so much time there. I nearly choked when he told me the official Pidgin name for Prince Charles is 'him fella nambawan big pic'ninny bilonga Mrs Queen...'

He spent a lot of time in Rwanda with MSF and the Red Cross following the genocide, and can make himself understood pretty well in Kinyarwanda. It's a sad thought, but most of his languages were gleaned from his time spent in conflict zones, he never really got to travel for pleasure, just lurching from one humanitarian crisis to another.

Strangely, he's lacking in European languages, although he does speak French like a Parisian, and can swear for hours on end in Italian, Russian, and, for some reason, Swahili, but only after a few gin slings. He's never bothered to learn German, as he says life's too short to assemble 23-syllable words and then try and say them without spraying saliva over everyone, and Dutch is just impossible, it's like gargling with a mouthful of gravel and phlegm. His best friend out in the sandbox was a Dutch cardiologist who, strangely for a Dutchman, didn't speak English, but was a fluent Farsi-speaker, and Will can't speak Dutch, so we had the odd sight of an Englishman and a Dutchman who could only talk to each other in Farsi, but were still the best of friends.

 

[Handley_Page]

Dutch does take a bit of getting used to.
I spent a couple of years on a station close to the Dutch/German border.
It's so guttural that I reckon it emanates from somewhere south of the knees and the rhythm does not help much, as I recall.

But the women were real pretty. . . .

 

[oggbashan]

It's my good fortune to be married to a polyglot, ...

Some rare people have the skill to assimilate languages. I haven't but I try.

My wife despairs whenever I speak French. She has a clean-cut Parisian accent. My last formal lessons of French were in Australia fifty years ago yet I still speak French with an Australian accent.

My Spanish isn't really Spanish but Llanito - a sort of bastard Spanish as spoken in Gibraltar sixty years ago and every sentence seems to have an obligatory expletive.

My French makes French people wince. My Spanish makes Spanish people cover their ears and pull faces. But I can make myself understood, even if they wish I wouldn't.

 

[Handley_Page]

Some rare people have the skill to assimilate languages. I haven't but I try.

My wife despairs whenever I speak French. She has a clean-cut Parisian accent. My last formal lessons of French were in Australia fifty years ago yet I still speak French with an Australian accent.

My Spanish isn't really Spanish but Llanito - a sort of bastard Spanish as spoken in Gibraltar sixty years ago and every sentence seems to have an obligatory expletive.

My French makes French people wince. My Spanish makes Spanish people cover their ears and pull faces. But I can make myself understood, even if they wish I wouldn't.

I used to have that problem with German and, partly Dutch.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Some rare people have the skill to assimilate languages. I haven't but I try.

My wife despairs whenever I speak French. She has a clean-cut Parisian accent. My last formal lessons of French were in Australia fifty years ago yet I still speak French with an Australian accent.

My Spanish isn't really Spanish but Llanito - a sort of bastard Spanish as spoken in Gibraltar sixty years ago and every sentence seems to have an obligatory expletive.

My French makes French people wince. My Spanish makes Spanish people cover their ears and pull faces. But I can make myself understood, even if they wish I wouldn't.

The French would say you speak French "comme une vache espangnole." Would Spaniards declare your Spanish sounds "como una vaca francés?"

 

[trysail]

...British English and American English...

Courtesy of those nice people at the OED:


Eggplant and aubergine
Zucchini and courgette
Garbanzos and chickpeas
Navy beans and haricot beans
Arugula and rocket
Romaine and cos


​

 

[AllardChardon]

Thank you, posters, I love it when you take over this thread. I thoroughly enjoyed the lengthy language discussion. I have little to contribute, except that I took Spanish in High School and College. I can still read and write it better than I speak it and in Northern California the opportunity to speak Spanish is rare.

The first two entries of this word were unexpected;

leaguer(1) - noun (1537) 1. a military camp 2. SEIGE

leaguer(2) - vt (ca. 1720) archaic: BESEIGE, BELEAGUER

leaguer(3) - noun (1591) a member of a league

 

[CarlusMagnus]

leath, cessation or soothing

Source: Mackay, Lost Beauties of the English Language

The word raises my suspicions: It's very close, in pronunciation and in meaning, to the word Lethe, one of whose meanings is oblivion. But none of my references makes any connection between the words.

 

[Handley_Page]

leath, cessation or soothing

Source: Mackay, Lost Beauties of the English Language

The word raises my suspicions: It's very close, in pronunciation and in meaning, to the word Lethe, one of whose meanings is oblivion. But none of my references makes any connection between the words.

LEAT. An artificial watercourse used round a water Mill.
It is often seen as a deviation from the main river, in such a manner as to give a suitable rate of water flow for the mill wheel.
You can still find the odd one working.

 

[oggbashan]

LEAT. An artificial watercourse used round a water Mill.
It is often seen as a deviation from the main river, in such a manner as to give a suitable rate of water flow for the mill wheel.
You can still find the odd one working.

Drake's Leat on Dartmoor is still providing water for Plymouth. It was built as a water supply channel, not for a mill wheel.

The usual term for a leat supplying a mill is a mill race.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Curiouser and curiouser...

LEAT. An artificial watercourse used round a water Mill.
It is often seen as a deviation from the main river, in such a manner as to give a suitable rate of water flow for the mill wheel.
You can still find the odd one working.

The other meaning of the word Lethe is from Greek/Roman mythology: a river in Hades whose water when drunk made the souls of the dead forget their life on earth. The meaning I cited earlier derives from this one, naturally. (Umm… supernaturally?)

 

[oggbashan]

...

The first two entries of this word were unexpected;

leaguer(1) - noun (1537) 1. a military camp 2. SEIGE

leaguer(2) - vt (ca. 1720) archaic: BESEIGE, BELEAGUER

leaguer(3) - noun (1591) a member of a league

In British English the word is laager from South African Dutch. It refers to the circle of wagons formed when stopping overnight to form a temporary fortification against attacks by native Africans. Like the US wagon trains circling to defend against the Indians.

From that use it became the term for any fortified encampment. The earlier term leaguer was displaced by laager in the late 19th Century.

Beleaguer is the British version of meaning 2 of leaguer i.e. to attack or surround a fortified place.

Meaning 3 of leaguer is effectively obsolete in British English. It was probably last applied to Temperance Leagues before 1914 - a Leaguer was an active temperance campaigner.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

In British English the word is laager from South African Dutch. It refers to the circle of wagons formed when stopping overnight to form a temporary fortification against attacks by native Africans. Like the US wagon trains circling to defend against the Indians.

From that use it became the term for any fortified encampment. The earlier term leaguer was displaced by laager in the late 19th Century.

Beleaguer is the British version of meaning 2 of leaguer i.e. to attack or surround a fortified place.

Meaning 3 of leaguer is effectively obsolete in British English. It was probably last applied to Temperance Leagues before 1914 - a Leaguer was an active temperance campaigner.

The word beleaguer demonstrates one of the uses of the prefix be-:

be- |bɪ-|
prefix
1 forming verbs:
• all over; all around: bespatter.
• thoroughly; excessively: bewilder.
2 (added to intransitive verbs) expressing transitive action: bemoan.
3 (added to adjectives and nouns) expressing transitive action: befool | befriend.
4 (added to nouns) affect with: befog.
• (added to adjectives) cause to be: befoul.
5 (forming adjectives ending in -ed) having; covered with: bejeweled.
ORIGIN Old English, weak form of bī ‘by.’

(Cut and pasted from the online dictionary on my Mac.)

 

[AllardChardon]

I love learning about words and their meanings and, you gentlemen, and added to that love. Thank you ever so much for your contributions.

I make a version of this from my lovely MJ plants I grow every year;

leaf lard - noun (ca. 1847) high-quality lard made from leaf fat

 

[Handley_Page]

I love learning about words and their meanings and, you gentlemen, and added to that love. Thank you ever so much for your contributions.

I make a version of this from my lovely MJ plants I grow every year;

leaf lard - noun (ca. 1847) high-quality lard made from leaf fat

~Would you care to expand on that please?

 

[CarlusMagnus]

~Would you care to expand on that please?

Indeed. Especially the "MJ" part. Around here, one doesn't make lard from MJ. One smokes it!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Indeed. Especially the "MJ" part. Around here, one doesn't make lard from MJ. One smokes it!

Of course! That's why leaf lard is preferred: it has a high smoking point!

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Of course! That's why leaf lard is preferred: it has a high smoking point!

Seems misdirected to me. I thought the point was to get high smoking…

 

[trysail]

I realize that, strictly speaking, these words might be considered out of alphabetical order. Nevertheless, I post them because I don't often run into unfamiliar words; when I do, it's important to write them down ASAP because if I don't, I tend to forget them.




ochlophobia, n., a phobia, or fear, of mob-like crowds, as opposed to simply open spaces like agoraphobia or large crowds as with enochlophobia.


enochlophobia, n., (rare) fear of crowds.


​

 

[AllardChardon]

I apologize for the delay in responding to the leaf lard questions. My grown children and their loved ones like to come home for the 4th of July festivities held here annually. They were here for 6 days.

I was talking about my own medicinal marijuana edibles I make in my kitchen. I use coconut to extract the THC from my own organic leaf material (with tiny buds), slowly over a low flame for 4 hours, then I strain it into a pan and add cacao butter and cacao paste, along with peanut butter, until melted. After that, I add many other dry ingredients, until I can make the mixture into a bon-bon. I refrigerate them and they are truly delicious. If anyone wants the recipe, just ask. Oddly enough, I am making a fresh batch today. I must say, the process is kinda stinky!

Smoking pot is immediate. Ingesting pot is quite different. First, it takes about an hour to come on to it, and then it last for at least 4 hours. The reason I smoke pot in the morning is the immediacy. After a particularly hard day in the gardens, a bon-bon is the perfect fix. It works like a muscle relaxer and sleep inducer. I make them the exact strength for my needs. I wake without soreness or hangover, so I can go out and do it all, again. They are also wonderful for those events where smoking is impossible. One bon-bon and I'm good for hours.

leaf fat - noun (ca. 1725) the fat that lines the abdominal cavity and encloses the kidneys; esp: that of a hog used in the manufacture of lard