The Language (and travel) Thread

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, DistantView said:

Providence is a nice city, as far as smaller cities go. We've got a lot of cultural activities in a very condensed area,  and a plethora of high quality food options,  including loads vegan. ♡

Sounds wonderful!  I never spent much time in Providence (though I lived only a short distance away), partly because I didn't drive at the time.  About all I remember about the food is there's a bottle of vinegar (rather than ketchup) on every table for your French fried budaduhs, and if you want a milkshake you have to call it a cabinet.

 

[DistantView]

10 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Sounds wonderful!  I never spent much time in Providence (though I lived only a short distance away), partly because I didn't drive at the time.  About all I remember about the food is there's a bottle of vinegar (rather than ketchup) on every table for your French fried budaduhs, and if you want a milkshake you have to call it a cabinet.

 

Lol, we've softened on the "cabinet" thing. When i was a kid there was a traditional pharmacy on Main st of the town I lived in that did indeed serve cabinets.  Never heard anyone else around here refer to them by that name though.

RI does have some unique, and maybe sort of weird,, features. 

For example... coffee milk. I asked for that once in a diner when I was at University in Philadelphia and the waitress looked at me like my head was on backwards!

[Carol the Dabbler]

7 hours ago, DistantView said:

RI does have some unique, and maybe sort of weird,, features. 

For example... coffee milk. I asked for that once in a diner when I was at University in Philadelphia and the waitress looked at me like my head was on backwards!

I don't recall that being a milk flavor (like chocolate) in Boston, but the three major ice cream flavors there were clearly vanilla,  chocolate, and coffee.  Here in Indiana, the third flavor is strawberry, but in Boston that was about as common as as peach.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I have a question for anyone who lives (or has lived) in a non-English-speaking country:

Assuming that your country's official language has borrowed some words from English, are they spelled, pronounced, and/or used just as they are in English, or have they been adapted in one or more ways?

Thank you!

The reason I'm asking is that it puzzles me when someone from elsewhere is upset that when Americans (and probably Brits too) borrow some of their words, they often spell and/or pronounce them differently (and/or use them to mean something a bit different).  Seems to me that sort of adaptation would be pretty common worldwide.  I can vaguely recall hearing about English words undergoing modifications in other countries, but don't offhand recall many of the specifics.

 

[Caya]

Yes, of course that happens here too. Take cellphones for example - German speakers call them a "Handy" . Then regularly get confused when English speakers don't know what they're talking about.

[besleybean]

Except some don't use that term, because in some German accents it sounds hilarious!

[Carol the Dabbler]

5 hours ago, Caya said:

Take cellphones for example - German speakers call them a "Handy" . 

Is it pronounced just like the English adjective?

 

[Caya]

Not quite - the German cellphone is pronounced  [ˈhɛndi] while the English adjective is pronounced [ˈhændi].

 

[besleybean]

Ah, lovely Vienna...I am envious.

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Caya said:

the German cellphone is pronounced  [ˈhɛndi] while the English adjective is pronounced [ˈhændi].

So they're spelt the same, pronounced a bit differently, and used *very* differently.

For anyone unfamiliar with the International Phonetic Alphabet, i believe you're saying that the German pronunciation rhymes with "trendy" or "Wendy," while the English rhymes with "candy" or "dandy."  So an American hearing the German pronunciation would likely assume it was some German word spelt "hendy."  No wonder they don't recognize the word!

I suppose German speakers are likewise sometimes puzzled by American or British words borrowed from German -- for example, I assume that up until the Macdonald's invasion, "Hamburger" meant a person from Hamburg?

 

[Caya]

Indeed, and it's rarely used as the food term, we tend to call that simply Burger.

The German loan word that puzzled me most, personally, was angst, because in German Angst simply means fear, and we don't really have a proper word to translate angst, oddly enough. Stuff like schadenfreude at least means roughly the same in both languages.

[Carol the Dabbler]

58 minutes ago, Caya said:

it's rarely used as the food term, we tend to call that simply Burger.

Same over here, actually.

One evening years ago in London, I went to a play with a friend of my Pakistani penpal.  Afterward I got a hamburger from a pushcart vendor, but the friend said she wasn't hungry.  Then we came across a Wimpy's, and she said she was starving.  I asked why she hadn't gotten a hamburger from the vendor and she replied "You know I don't eat ham!"  So I explained that a Wimpy Burger was simply a brand name for a hamburger, and that a hamburger is made from beef, not ham.  Good ol' confusing English!

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 7/19/2021 at 3:27 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

See, it is said that the past tense is abled, and third person usage is ables, past participle is abled, present participle is abling.

 

On 7/19/2021 at 3:07 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

The two related verbs, enable and disable, that I mentioned above, do have those forms.  But I can't offhand think of any context where just able is used as a verb. 

I just came across this discussion again, and see that I failed to think of a related usage.  Even though "able" isn't a verb in its own right, it has developed a past participle by analogy with "enabled" and "disabled."  So you may see such expressions as "he is differently abled."

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 2/20/2022 at 1:11 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

I have a question for anyone who lives (or has lived) in a non-English-speaking country:

Assuming that your country's official language has borrowed some words from English, are they spelled, pronounced, and/or used just as they are in English, or have they been adapted in one or more ways?

I know two other languages that do this, one adopts quite a number of English words, the pronunciations are definitely different, but the spelling sometimes remains (when it works with the local pronunciations), sometimes adapted to suit. They sound the same with their English's counterparts, but written differently.

The other language is less adapting, and tries vainly to translate everything, which I'm not a fan. It has enough vocabulary to describe everything, and wasn't under British influence historically (I believe it plays a part), but it's annoying when they translate something that should be known globally, for example, UN. It has its own term, and could be confusing for those who are not familiar with the language and politic.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I know two other languages that do this

What about the meaning of the borrowed words?  Is it the same as in English?

 

[J.P.]

Oh, Polish is especially nice to borrowed words. Because we have to flex (pun intended) and do other funny things to them.

First example coming to my mind: The Beatles. The name is a word in plural. But Beatles sounds like singular masculine in Polish. So it was changed to plural (because it's a band of forur Beatles), and it's Beatlesi, which translated back to English would make quite gollum-y (The) Beatleses. The same with Rolling Stones, The Stranglers… and probably most of similar built band names.

This link below shows what my language makes to foreign names, as well as any foreign nouns - as far as they are physiologically pronounceable.

https://www.inpolish.edu.pl/single-post/2017/05/22/how-to-decline-names-and-surnames-in-polish

[Carol the Dabbler]

5 hours ago, J.P. said:

The Beatles. The name is a word in plural. But Beatles sounds like singular masculine in Polish. So it was changed to plural (because it's a band of forur Beatles), and it's Beatlesi, which translated back to English would make quite gollum-y (The) Beatleses.

Same thing can happen in American English.  For example, we borrowed the Italian word zucchini (for a type of summer squash called a courgette in British English), which is already plural.  But -i doesn't look like a plural ending in English, so we say that we bought one zucchini or three zucchinis, whereas the Italian singular may (or may not) be zucchino, depending on who you listen to.  (Thanks to Wikipedia for some of these details.)

More examples of borrowed-word modification (from any languages) would be most welcome!

* * * * * *

My original question [here] was prompted by watching a YouTube video [here] by an Italian man complaining that neither the customers nor the staff of Italian-cuisine restaurants in the US are likely to pronounce the names of the dishes properly.  This fellow usually posts nicely researched and carefully thought out history videos, but this time he seemed to let his gut reaction get the better of him.  I couldn't even bear to finish watching, though (so possibly he says "just joking" at the end).

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hubby has been watching The Avengers (John Steed, et al., not the Marvel superheroes), and I've noticed something odd, just from being in the room at times.

It's a British series, made in the UK by British people who prided themselves on doing things the British way, even after the American Broadcasting Company began partly funding the show..  But in later episodes, I'm hearing some peculiar words.  "I tried to phone, but the line was busy," and "I'm going back to my apartment."  Some Americans are probably unfamiliar with the British term "engaged," but surely we could have figured it out from context.  And just about everyone here knows what a "flat" is.

It's a bit jarring!

Wonder whose idea it was?

 

[besleybean]

We do sometimes use 'busy'.

I'm not positive on the apartment thing...

but if I think back to the Sixties, I think it may have been accepatbel for us plebs-

to hear celebs or city folk speak of 'apartments'.  

I mean in the jet-set sense, rather than an average flat!

[Carol the Dabbler]

10 hours ago, besleybean said:

We do sometimes use 'busy'.

Thanks.  I guess using "busy" makes a certain amount of sense then -- I've *never* heard an American say "engaged" with regard to a phone.

10 hours ago, besleybean said:

back to the Sixties, I think it may have been acceptable for us plebs-

to hear celebs or city folk speak of 'apartments'.  

I mean in the jet-set sense, rather than an average flat!

We use "apartment" for any part-of-a-building living quarters (rented or condominium), right down to a single small room with kitchenette in the corner (unless it doesn't have its own private toilet/bath facilities, in which case it's merely a "room").  So it's funny to think that "apartment" was ever a "fancy" term in the UK.  The show was of course made in the 60s, though, and so far I've heard "apartment" used only in reference to Steed's place, which certainly isn't ordinary!

The only American I can recall using the word "flat" in that sense (except in reference to the UK) is an Anglophile who spells "color" with a u.

 

[besleybean]

I will love the English language to my last breath...

but I do prefer American spellings.

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 3/7/2022 at 2:16 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

What about the meaning of the borrowed words?  Is it the same as in English?

 

Yes, although some, to my wonder, have their own vocabs but the borrowed words are also widely used.

 

You know what guys?

I think I'll never stop finding things that 'annoy' me.

A unique and an honest, how on earth are we, the humble non-English speaking creatures know what is silent and not... 

I have come with one conclusion, that English language is.... THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE!

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I have a question for anyone who speaks British:  Why is a piece of cloth intended for washing one's face, etc., called a "flannel"?

Near as I can tell by enlarging the photos on Amazon UK, "flannels" are (like our "wash cloths") made from the same type of cloth used for bath towels.  We call it "terry cloth" (no idea why), and I believe you call it (logically enough) "toweling," or perhaps "towelling."

Over here, "flannel" is a much different type of fabric, not as thick as terry cloth / toweling, and bearing very little resemblance to it.  It's mostly used for winter shirts and pajamas, and its defining characteristic is that it's been brushed to raise a bit of nap (i.e., to make it fuzzy), making it both softer and warmer than it would otherwise be.

 

[besleybean]

Isn't it because they were originally made of flannel?

Anyway, it gives rise to the expression: talking a load of flannel'!

Many Brits jut call them face cloths.

[Carol the Dabbler]

8 minutes ago, besleybean said:

Isn't it because they were originally made of flannel?

Could be, at least in the UK.

8 minutes ago, besleybean said:

Anyway, it gives rise to the expression: talking a load of flannel'!

... which I'd never heard till now!

8 minutes ago, besleybean said:

Many Brits jut call them face cloths.

I've heard that here as well, though I think it's generally reserved for special face-washing cloths, as opposed to cloths used for washing any part of the body.

If you're old-fashioned, there's also the term "wash rag" -- presumably because actual rags were once used.  (There's also "dish rag" as an alternative to "dish cloth.")