The words rifle and ruffle sound similar, but are they related? Let’s find out. A rifle is a firearm fired from the shoulder with a long, rifled barrel, which increases range and improves accuracy. It is short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel (rifling). It comes from Middle English riflen (to rob, plunder, search through), from Old French rifler (to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder), from Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (to tear, rend), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (to tear) [source]. A ruffle is any gathered or curled strip of fabric added as trim or decora ..read more

Are you a madrugador? I used to be, but now I’m more of a dormilón and a trasnochador. Madrugador [ma.ð̞ɾu.ɣ̞aˈð̞oɾ] is a Spanish (and Portuguese) word that means an early riser, early bird or morning person, and as an adjective it means rising or waking early. [source]. Madrugador comes from madrugar (to get up early), from Vulgar Latin *mātūricāre (to wake up early), from Latin matūro (to ripen, mature, hasten, rush), from mātūrus (mature, ripe, early, soon), from Proto-Italic *mātus (ripeness) from the PIE *meh₂- (to ripen, to mature) [source]. Sometimes you can pack a lot of meaning into ..read more

Do you like to nurdle? The verb to nurdle can mean to gently waffle or muse on a subject which one clearly knows little about, which is something I do occasionally, or to score runs (in cricket) by gently nudging the ball into vacant areas of the field. It can also mean to shoot (a wink) into a position too close to the pot to be easily potted (in tiddlywinks). As a noun, a nurdle is such a shot in cricket or tiddlywinks; cylindrical shaped pre-production plastic pellet used in manufacturing and packaging; or blob of toothpaste shaped like a wave, often depicted on toothpaste packaging [source ..read more

When you ask someone to do something for you, but in an indirect kind of way, or in other words, you phrase an order or imperative obliquely as a question, this is apparently called a whimperative. For example, you might say “Would you mind closing the window?”, rather than the more direct “Please, close the window” or “Close the window!”. Or you might say “Why don’t you be quiet?” instead of “Be quiet” [source]. This word was coined by Jerrold Sadock, a professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, in an essay he wrote in 1970. It’s a blend of whimper and imperative. Another term fo ..read more

Yesterday I discovered that a hardware store in French is a quincaillerie [kɛ̃.kaj.ʁi]. This word can also refer to hardware, ironmongery or junk, or in French, une ensemble hétéroclite de choses inutiles (a motley collection of useless things) [source] Quincaillerie comes from quincaille (hardware, utensils) a variant of clincaille [klɛ̃.kaj], which is related to clinquant [klɛ̃.kɑ̃] (flashy, kitsch, pretentious), from clinquer [klɛ̃.ke] (to rattle, make a metalic noise), which comes from the onomatopeic word clic (click). Similar words exist in Spanish: quincallería (hardware store) and qui ..read more

The French equivalent of the saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back” or “the last / final straw” is la goutte d’eau qui fait déborder le vase (the drop of water that makes the vase overflow). Which makes as much a sense, and no animals are harmed. These sayings mean “The final additional small burden that makes the entirety of one’s difficulties unbearable.” The earliest known version in English appears in a debate between Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall in 1677: ‘the last Feather may be said to break a Horses Back’. It is thought to be based on the Arabic proverb ..read more

I came across an interesting word yesterday that I hadn’t seen before: fictile. It means capable of being moulded into the shape of an artifact or art work; moulded clay or earth; relating to earthenware, or capable of being led or directed. Synonyms include pliable and moldable. Fictile comes from Latin fictilus, from fictus (feigned, fictitious, false), from fingō (to shape, fashion, form, deceive, pretend), from Proto-Italic *fingō (to knead, form), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (to knead, form, shape) [source]. Words for the same roots include: dairy, dough, feign, feint, fiction, fig ..read more

If you live in a muddy place, or want to describe such a place, you could use the old word lutarious. It means “of, pertaining to, or like, mud; living in mud”, and comes from the Latin word lutarius (of or belonging to the mud, living in mud), from lutum (mud, soil, dirt, mire, loam, clay), from Proto-Indo-European *lew- (dirt, mud) [source]. A related word is lutulent [ˈlʌtjʊlənt], which means pertaining to mud, or muddy. Words for the same roots include: Albanian: llucë = thin or shallow mud, muddy place Portuguese: lodoso = muddy Romanian: lut = clay, loam, mud, dirt, lutos = clayey Span ..read more

When is a gun not a gun? The word gun nowadays refers to “A device for projecting a hard object very forcefully; a firearm or cannon, etc”. However, originally it wasn’t just used for firearms. The word possibly comes from the name of a ballista, a type of giant crossbow (see above), that was used at Windsor Castle in England in the 14th century – Domina Gunilda (Lady Gunilda). An inventory of the munitions of Windsor Castle conducted in 1330-31 included the entry: Una magna balista de cornu quæ vocatur Domina Gunilda. (A great ballista of horn which is called Lady Gunilda.) Not long after ..read more

The French word oie means goose, but how do you pronounce it? Last night at the French Conversation Group, we were talking about geese, as you do, and while I could remember how to write the word for goose in French, I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it. Then one of my friends suggested it was foie as in foie gras [fwa ɡʁa]. I knew this means “fat liver”, so foie must mean liver, and that oie probably sounds similar to foie. My guess was right, oie is pronounced [wa] and rhymes with foie [fwa]. It comes from the Old French oie (goose), from Vulgar Latin auca (goose), a contraction of *avica, fro ..read more