DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

I've been following the total rebuild of a boat called Tally Ho on Youtube for years and a verb that is very often used is to 'fair' it, meaning the last process on a wooden part which sets the finish. I used 'Fair' in this sense on the site when talking about doorstep stones having a fair bottom surface so that they could be turned when worn.

[plaques]

Received my Bill Bryson book 'Troublesome Words' An old book that I've been promising myself to buy to complete the collection of Bryson works. Nothing esoteric about the words he has chosen just the fact that they are commonly misused.
Now here's the problem. Set out like dictionary 'A to Z' Is it correct to start at 'A' and work through to 'Z' as with a novel. or dip in for a specific word and hope that its included in his list as per normal dictionary.

Nothing is simple when you get to my age.

[Tripps]

Nothing is simple when you get to my age.

I second that. . . .

I'd be for dipping every time - don't look for words you know - discover exciting new ones.

[Stanley]

I agree with David Ken, dip every time unless there is a specific word you need advice on.

[Tripps]

I've heard, and used, 'legalise' but never its opposite.

Speaking of Graham Norton someone has said "his laugh should be illegalised" .

Perfectly cromulent though . . . . .

[Stanley]

'Cromulent'
Have we done 'flit' as in moving house? Whilst watching my Scandi Noir I noticed that their word for house removal firm is 'flyttebyrå'. So I went for a furtle to find confirmation and found this:-
"flit (v.) c. 1200, flitten, flytten, flutten "convey, move (a thing) from one place to another, take, carry away," also intransitive, "go away, move, migrate," from Old Norse flytja "to remove, bring," from Proto-Germanic *flutjan- "to float," from extended form of PIE root *pleu- "to flow." Intransitive sense "move lightly and swiftly" is from early 15c.; from c. 1500 as "remove from one habitation to another" (originally Northern English and Scottish) "Theire desire ... is to goe to theire newe masters eyther on a Tewsday, or on a Thursday; for ... they say Munday flitte, Neaver sitte." [Henry Best, farming & account book, 1641] Related: Flitted; flitting. As a noun, "a flitting, a removal," from 1835."
When you start digging, so much of our Northern dialect has Scandinavian roots....

[Tripps]

flyttebyrå'

And perhaps is the byra ending connected with our farmers' word byre as in cattle shed?

[Tizer]

My grandma was always doing a flit from one rented house to another, so much so that my father says when he was a child he was never sure when walking home after school that he would be going to the right house. But whenever I tell people that story they tell me that `to flit' meant to leave without paying your rent. I disagree, it simply meant moving house where I grew up. The Scandinavian usage seems to confirm my claim!

[Tripps]

they tell me that `to flit' meant to leave without paying your rent

That's a 'moonlight flit'.

Best example Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan in A Taste of Honey

[Stanley]

David is right Peter, they got it wrong. It was indeed a moonlight flit. No shame in a normal flit.
I looked byrå up David and there doesn't seem to be a connection with Byre It means agency or bureau.

[Stanley]

The bird featured on Tweet of the Day on BBC4 this morning was the Wheatear. We were regaled with the fact that the name has nothing to do with wheat.... It's a polite rendering of the name 'White Arse'. I like that....

[Tizer]

It probably became wheatear when bird identification books were first published for the general public and the publishers couldn't use the original name.

A news report this morning included this sentence: `The researchers calculated that combine harvesters, when fully loaded, have ballooned in size from about 4,000kg in 1958 to around 36,000kg in 2020.' That's interesting in its own right but I've copied it here as an example of usage that has become common and that irks me. When I was doing technical journalism we were always told to use the most appropriate scale and avoid unnecessarily long numbers. So we would have written `about 4 tonnes..to...36 tonnes' because 1 tonne equals 1000kg. This often brought the response `Our readers are not very familiar with the term tonne'. The answer was `Then write `about 4 tons..to...36 tons' because the difference between the two is only 1.5% and you're using the word `about'! Another example, which I'm bound to have aired on OG already, is the dimensions of cars being given is sales brochures in millimetres!

[Stanley]

I agree with you Peter. Funny thing is that the US still uses the Imperial System but doesn't use tons, they always talk about multiples of a thousand pounds, a fifty ton wagon is 100,000 pounds. I always have to do a quick mental calculation. I often wonder if the use of multiples of a thousand in both pounds and kilograms is used because it's more impressive, carries more weight.... : (Sorry.... )

[PanBiker]

Some already known but quite a few new ones here, found in the random offerings from Google and a site called Pocket


Deliquescent

Adjective: Becoming liquid, or having a tendency to become liquid.

Flabbergast

Verb: Surprise someone greatly.

Flimflam

Noun: Nonsensical or insincere talk.

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Noun: The action or habit of estimating something as worthless.

Limerence

Noun: The state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person.

Loquacious

Adjective: Tending to talk a great deal; talkative.

Obdurate

Adjective: Stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or course of action.

Omnishambles

Noun: A situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations.

Penumbra

Noun: The partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object.

Persiflage

Noun: Light and slightly contemptuous mockery or banter.

Perspicacious

Adjective: Having a ready insight into and understanding of things.

Quincunx

Noun: An arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its centre, used for the five on a dice or playing card.

Tintinnabulation

Noun: A ringing or tinkling sound.

Triskaidekaphobia

Noun: Extreme superstition regarding the number thirteen.

Velleity

Noun: A wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.

[Tripps]

"Floccinaucinihilipilification"

As mentioned in Parliament by Jacob Rees Mogg in a rather faux 'matter of fact' way.


"Persiflage"

As mentioned on here before and made into an adverb which pleasingly still returns only one result in a Google search. persiflagilistically

[Stanley]

I'm afraid that unlike Rees Mogg I love short words like shit, lurk and plunge..... They are so clear and economical.
My experience of people using long words is that they are insecure and trying to gain an advantage over the audience by appearing to be superior to them.
Can you even imagine Rees Mogg doing a job that involved manual dexterity, skill or physical strength? The qualities we have survived on all our lives. People like him are parasites.....

[PanBiker]

I have always maintained that we should have been as revolting as the French when they had their clear out of parasites.

If we had, the Bullingdon Club and Boris and his mates and all the others who consider themselves Lords of the Universe would not have existed. We would have been better off for it as well.

[Stanley]

The Tories would say we are suffering from 'The Politics of Envy'. Nonsense of course but that is the sort of facile explanation that keeps them in their comfort zone.
Back to words.... I wondered yesterday about 'tongs' as in sugar-tongs. Here's what I found.....
"From Middle English tonge (“tongs, fang”), tange, from Old English tange, from Proto-Germanic *tangō, from Proto-Indo-European *denḱ- (“to bite”). Cognate with Old Norse tǫng (modern Icelandic töng), Old High German zanga (modern German Zange). Other cognates include Sanskrit दशति (dáśati, “to bite”) and Albanian dang (“bite, nip”). "

[Stanley]

Ian.... Re. your comment about the Bullingdon Club. This image came to mind....



“Toffs and Toughs” is a 1937 photograph of five boys: two dressed in the Harrow School uniform including waistcoat, top hat, boutonnière, and cane; and three nearby wearing the plainclothes of pre-war working-class youths. The picture was taken by Jimmy Sime on 9 July 1937 outside the Grace Gates at Lord’s Cricket Ground during the Eton vs Harrow cricket match. It has been reproduced frequently as an illustration of the British class system. The Harrovians were Peter Wagner and Thomas “Tim” Dyson, who had arranged to be at Grace Gates at 2 pm, where Wagner’s father would pick them up and drive them to Russ Hill, the Wagners’ country home in Surrey, for the weekend. The other three boys were George Salmon, Jack Catlin, and George Young, 13-year-old pupils at the local Church of England primary school.
We had our chance in 1997 but by a cruel stroke of fate John Smith died and we got Blair, scion of a wealthy family and privately educated. (One of the first things they did was rewrite Clause IV. I have never forgiven them for that.)

[Tripps]

My experience of people using long words is that they are insecure and trying to gain an advantage over the audience by appearing to be superior to them.

Present company excepted of course.

[Stanley]

It would be a waste of time for anyone to try to gain superiority over this audience.....
(And Peter will be back from his holiday tomorrow. We should all huddle in the corner and mutter about strata. He'll think we've been talking about geology all week..... )

[Tripps]

Just heard the phrase 'cloud cuckoo land ' used in Parliament. Wondered where it came from - suspected Walt Disney.

Well I never! = Aristophenes 2,400 years ago. Cloud cuckoo land

[Stanley]

I share your surprise David. Never heard that before. I would have guessed from a nursery rhyme...

[MickBrett]

I'm surprised. I thought that "cloud cuckoo land" was a quite common phrase.

[PanBiker]

Aye, I'm with you on that one Mick.