DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

Thanks to PE for this.... The Germans have a word for the dark gloomy windless overcast weather.... It's Dunkelflaute. I shall try to use it......

[Tripps]

I posted it back in August. It's the sort weather that will spoil the Government's silly Net Zero policy.

dunkelflaute

You seemed doubtful we would ever use it again.

Will you be using it David?

[Stanley]

I must have been in a very non-receptive mood David. I apologise!
(PS. your source then was almost exactly the same as the source in PE which was concerned about having to maintain outmoded generation plants.)

[Stanley]

My mind was running along the lines of walking in slush when I remembered a word I haven't heard for years..... 'Galosh' So of course I looked it up....
Galoshes, also known by many other names, are a type of overshoe or rubber boot that is put on over shoes to keep them from getting muddy or wet during inclement weather.
That's the short version but THIS Wikipedia entry makes an interesting read.....

[Stanley]

As I drifted off to sleep last night I was pondering on the names of counties in England and realised something for the first time. Then it struck me that perhaps I was a bit slow and I had just found something that everyone else had known all their lives! Anyway, here goes.
Th shire counties are named after their county town, Cheshire = Chester, Lancaster, York, Worcester etc. Then we have Norfolk and Suffolk; North and South 'folk'? Then middle sex, East sex, West sex and Sussex (south?)
Strange the way your mind works at times...... I had never seen these relationships before.
(Now I want explanations for 'folk' and 'sex'!)

[Wendyf]

I believe you have to think sax as in Saxon not sex!

[Stanley]

I did a bit more digging and you are of course right Wendy and 'folk' means people, so Norfolk is the north people and Suffolk the south.....
I feel better for that!

[Wendyf]

As someone who is often awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, one of my strategies to top worries piling in is to attempt to list counties alphabetically. I'm getting good with cities, but rivers are my favourite! Why is Monmouth not on the coast, and what is the river that flows through it?

[Stanley]

From memory I think it is the Monnow.....

Little known fact..... When I was tramping with the Bedford TK the road over the bridge in the town was open and I used to cross with the wagon and of course that involved negotiating the arch through the chapel on the bridge. Hardly seems feasible now but I can assure you it was allowed......

[Wendyf]

It is!

[Tizer]

Wessex is an elision of the Old English West Saxon so I suppose likewise for Essex, Sussex and Middlesex.

[Stanley]

Funnily enough Peter I have manage to live 90 years without realising that is true! I sometimes wonder if I am a bit dense.....

[Tizer]

I have the advantage of living with someone who knows a lot that I don't know!

[Tripps]

I just heard on BBC Radio 4 News, a lady say (in the energy context) - "we must get used to the word 'dunkelflaute' entering the language in common usage.
Once again Oneguy leads the world.


PS Thanks Tizer - now I know what 'elision' means.

[Stanley]

Lovely posts.....

[Tizer]

Looking out of my window right now all I can see is dunkelflaute! (Thanks, Tripps, for introducing me to the word in your past OG posts.)

I've been reading something that mentions driving cars in America and of course it mentions filing up at the gas station. That prompted a thought - if Americans call petrol `gas' what is their word for our `gas' (i.e. coal gas, natural gas)?

[Tripps]

what is their word for our `gas' (i.e. coal gas, natural gas)?

Still just "gas". They rely on context I believe.

[PanBiker]

I have often wondered what they call ladies stocking suspenders which they use for braces?

[Stanley]

Garters and therefore a garter belt Ian. Before you ask I think they call garters the same thing. Bit like 'gas'.
The general theory about the US version of English is that basically they are still using the 18th century version and this explains why their grammar and syntax is different. The version of French that is used in Quebec is the same vintage and that's why the French laugh at it.
We use a Franglais word 'brassiere' for part of a woman's underwear. The French don't recognise that, they use 'Soutien-gorge' which is literally 'throat supporter'.

[PanBiker]

Daft as usual from the yanks. Garters are elastic loops that go all around the leg to hold up stockings. I think the yanks call those hold ups which used to mean a robbery in cowboy films. Suspenders suspend stockings which is perfectly logical and will remain in my vocabulary.

[Tizer]

The general theory about the US version of English is that basically they are still using the 18th century version and this explains why their grammar and syntax is different.

One of Bill Bryson's early books goes into that in great detail with lots of examples. I was reminded of it last weekend when the Feedback column in The Times responded to a reader who complained about the paper allowing use of `gotten' in place of `got'. The editor quickly pointed out that it was in a quote and therefore would not have been changed. But, as usual in the Feedback column, there was more. He referred to various instances of `gotten' used in English publications centuries ago and they also used `getten' in those days too. And perhaps it was still in use in Lancashire in my childhood too - I'm sure I heard examples such `as tha getten a new car, then?'

[Tripps]

I'm sure I heard examples such `as tha getten a new car, then?'
/quote]

I did too. I think Uncle JIm (from Preston) still says it.

get gotten
And there's -
Forget forgotten
Beget begotten. . . .

I guess the Americans continued to use the archaic form after we had stopped doing so - being so isolated from civilisation over there.

I didn't know this -

Tally Ho! The rallying cry of fox hunts and Spitfire pilots everywhere. Comes from the Medieval French Tailles Haut!
Taille was the sharp edge of a sword, and Haut means high. It was the command given to French knights to draw their swords preparatory to charging their phalanx of horseflesh and steel into the pitiful mass of enemy infantry. Generally worked very well.

[Stanley]

Worth remembering that at one time the Royal Court in London used French and English was looked down on. While they were borrowing words from French like Tally Ho, up here we were using Middle English and borrowing from the Norse countries with words like Boskin and Byre.....

[PanBiker]

I watched Lucy Worsley's program on the "harrowing of the North" by William's lot. Scorched earth policy for Yorkshire and Northumberland as we were the awkward ones. Norman genocide by another name.

[Tizer]

...Norman genocide by another name.

William the Conqueror invited Jewish people to settle in England after the Norman Conquest - then Edward I expelled them all in 1290.Those early monarchs were almost as unreliable as Donald Trump!
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On the wall behind me I have a painting of a Sunderland flying boat in RAF WW2 colours. I've long known that German fighter pilots respected them for their heavy armament of gun turrets and referred to the planes as `porcupines'. It's only this morning that, looking at the picture, I realised the Germans would be using their own word so I looked it up. I find the German word for porcupine is Stachelschwein, literally `stinging pig'.