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I recently figured out how to view my unread Gmail, and was horrified to see how many links people have sent me have languished, apparently ignored and forgotten, because of my bad habit of letting them hang around until I need them. Here’s one the much-missed Paul Ogden sent me back in 2014 (!): Ampersand, An International Journal of General and Applied Linguistics.

Serving the breadth of the general and applied linguistics communities, Ampersand offers a highly-visible, open-access home for authors. An international, peer-reviewed journal, Ampersand welcomes submissions in applied and historical linguistics, phonetics, phonology, pragmatics, semantics, sociolinguistics and syntax. […] In response to the global thrust toward open source, open data and open access in science, Ampersand offers the opportunity for authors to make their research freely available to everyone, opening their work to a wider audience and increased readership.

Delving at random into the archives, I find “English language teacher development in a Russian university: Context, problems and implications” by Tatiana Rasskazova, Maria Guzikova, and Anthony Green, “English collocations: A novel approach to teaching the language’s last bastion” by Rafe S. Zaabalawi and Anthony M. Gould, and “Tweaa! – A Ghanaian interjection of ‘contempt’ in online political comments,” by Rachel Thompson; it looks like there’s lots of interesting stuff there, though I have no idea how well regarded the journal is by linguists. It’s too late to apologize to Paul, but I hereby issue a heartfelt “Sorry!” to all those who have sent me links and never heard back or seen them posted; hopefully they’ll be showing up belatedly in posts to come.

A reader writes:

A nationally syndicated columnist here in Canada, born in Ireland and claiming to have some Gaelic, recently wrote this: “In Irish, the ladybug is the ‘Calf of God.’ Nobody knows why. Some other languages have similar names for this sweet insect. A linguistic mystery.”

Is that a mystery that languagehat could solve? I was interested in the point about “some other languages” and imagined you and your contributors might be able to add context.

So: thoughts on ladybugs?

One of those “what do you call it?” quizzes that I so enjoy — Lincolnshire Live posted an image of a bun full of thick-cut French fries (as we Yanks call them) and asked for reader responses, and this is the result:

Chip butty and chip cob were by far the two most popular answers on our Facebook post (although there was a clear winner – see below) – but there was a lot of disagreement, and a lot of other names were thrown out there as well.

Teacake and barm cake were two others that got name-checked, while roll, batch, breadcake, bap, cake, muffin and even just bread all got votes.

One thing is for sure, though – everyone who voted thought they were right, and many mocked others for their answers! Indeed, some even suggested people should leave the county if they don’t use the ‘right’ word for it.

Which seems harsh to us.

It’s also got a useful map of names for bread rolls around the UK.

Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) YouTube playlist:

Judeo-Spanish (widely known as Ladino) was once spoken by the Jews of Spain — after the expulsion of 1492, most of those speakers moved to the Ottoman Empire or to Morocco.

By the early 20th century, with the arrival of tens of thousands of speakers from cities such as Salonica, Istanbul, and Izmir, New York had become one of the language’s global centers.

These are the stories of “Ladino New York” — in 12 episodes, the stories of those speak the language or remember the language and its major role in the history and future of Jewish New York.

In the first one, Stella Levi, “a native Ladino speaker from Rhodes now in her 90s,” starts off by introducing herself as “Leví, o Levi — los italyanos dizen Levi, ande vos otros era Leví.” And in the fifth, Alicia Sisso Raz, whose family was originally from Tetouan, Morocco, speaks Haketia, mentioned here back in 2003. Thanks, Y!

Bathrobe sent me these links, adding:

It’s interesting to actually hear and savour the sound of these languages (rather than just stare at the written forms) as they are used in making announcements. Of course, the enunciation is much clearer than everyday conversation, which is nice if you don’t know the languages.

Metro Announcements in European Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Occitan, Basque, Catalan, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Sweden, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Hungary, Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian. (The Czech “dveře se zavírají” brings back my happy visits to Prague.)

Various Europe metro announcements: Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, Bucharest, Minsk, Prague, Barcelona, Rome.

Subway announcements from around the world: part 1, part 2 (European Edition), part 3 (European Extra Edition), part 4 (American Edition). As Bathrobe says, these are not as clear or well done; the transcriptions are often incorrect or missing, and Catalan is mistaken for Spanish. Furthermore, each comes with an annoying half-minute introduction. On the plus side, they show the trains.

Thanks, Bathrobe!

In a recent Log thread on words meaning ‘foreigner,’ Iranianist Martin Schwartz (see this LH post) said:

Indeed, the late Beekes’ seeing xénos as Pre-Greek is rendered untenable by the existence of a cognate in Avestan, however Wiktionary gives no further info on this. It was I who provided that Avestan cognate (the articles may be found on the internet), first in 1982 (“The Indo-European Vocabulary of Exchange, Hospitality, and Intimacy“, Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 8), and, among other publications, in 2003, “Gathic Compositional History, Yasna 29, and Bovine Symbolism“, pp. 213-214, in which I reconstructed PIE *ksen-w-, this time with initial velar as against my earlier suggestion of a labio-velar, based on wrong comparison with Hittite kussan-. A further, very detailed account of the etymology and its role in Gathic poetics is […] awaiting publication in a Viennese festschrift. A takeaway is that the original meaning of the word, as evidenced clearly in Homer, is that xénos/xeînos was not ‘stranger, foreigner’, but someone who, as per the archaic gift-exchange institution, was one of two parties who were mutually tied by an ongoing relationship of hospitality etc.; in Avestan the cognate verb referred to reciprocity and provision of hospitality and further (like the archaic Greek) cultic relationship. For many years Calvert Watkins contested my etymology of the Greek word, himself favoring a connection a connection with PIE *ghosti-, another term of reciprocity, but he finally conceded in public that my etymology was to be accepted for phonological reasons.

(I added links for convenience.) That’s very interesting to me; I had always accepted the *ghosti- version, but I like this one. And Schwartz has a follow-up comment on Georgian (!) borrowings from Hebrew:

As for goy, goyim: An interesting deveopment is Georgian goimi, which seems to mean ‘an old fashioned, unstylish out-of-it person, a boor or yokel’, as I have learned from a Tbilisi native speaker. The word originated from ‘gentile’ among Georgian Jews, who apparently (like speakers of Judeo-Iranian languages) use the pl. form a a singular. It is noted online, inter alia in an entry “11 Georgian slang words to help you speak like a local” [and not like a yokel, M.S.]. The latter article also gives baiti for ‘living space’, which ultimately comes from Hebrew bayit (as the article indicates); I’m reminded of Viennese beisl ‘bistro, tavern, restaurant’, from the Ashkenazic pronunciation of the Heb. word, bayis.

Unrelated, but I just learned about the phrase “splice the mainbrace,” which I’d doubtless read without understanding:

“Splice the mainbrace” is an order given aboard naval vessels to issue the crew with an alcoholic drink. Originally an order for one of the most difficult emergency repair jobs aboard a sailing ship, it became a euphemism for authorized celebratory drinking afterward, and then the name of an order to grant the crew an extra ration of rum or grog.

If you were as ignorant as me, now we’re both gnorant.

Winston Churchill was a vainglorious bastard, but he was unquestionably eloquent, and I can’t resist posting this passage from his Thoughts and Adventures (1932; via Michael Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti):

‘What shall I do with all my books?’ was the question; and the answer, ‘Read them,’ sobered the questioner. But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.

It is a mistake to read too many good books when quite young. A man once told me that he had read all the books that mattered. Cross-questioned, he appeared to have read a great many, but they seemed to have made only a slight impression. How many had he understood? How many had entered into his mental composition? How many had been hammered on the anvils of his mind and afterwards ranged in an armoury of bright weapons ready to hand?

It is a great pity to read a book too soon in life. The first impression is the one that counts; and if it is a slight one, it may be all that can be hoped for. A later and second perusal may recoil from a surface already hardened by premature contact. Young people should be careful in their reading, as old people in eating their food. They should not eat too much. They should chew it well.

Since change is an essential element in diversion of all kinds, it is naturally more restful and refreshing to read in a different language from that in which one’s ordinary daily work is done. To have a second language at your disposal, even if you only know it enough to read it with pleasure, is a sensible advantage. Our educationists are too often anxious to teach children so many different languages that they never get far enough in any one to derive any use or enjoyment from their study. The boy learns enough Latin to detest it; enough Greek to pass an examination; enough French to get from Calais to Paris; enough German to exhibit a diploma; enough Spanish or Italian to tell which is which; but not enough of any to secure the enormous boon of access to a second literature.

Choose well, choose wisely, and choose one. Concentrate upon that one. Do not be content until you find yourself reading in it with real enjoyment. The process of reading for pleasure in another language rests the mental muscles; it enlivens the mind by a different sequence and emphasis of ideas. The mere form of speech excites the activity of separate brain-cells, relieving in the most effective manner the fatigue of those in hackneyed use. One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement. So it is with reading in another language than your own.

I disagree about reading good books when young — I think such reading lays down good, fertile soil for later growth rather than hardening the surface — but I nodded my head vigorously to most of it, especially the final paragraph.

I’m reading another of Valentin Kataev’s fictionalized memoirs of childhood, Кубик (Little Cube: “because it has six faces in three dimensions, or because it’s the name of a dog, or just because”), and he uses the word бильбоке (Wikipedia; stress on the final syllable), which is borrowed from French bilboquet, which has also been borrowed into English as bilboquet \ˌbilbəˈket\, also known as cup and ball. I checked the OED (entry from 1887), and was highly amused by the indignant bracketed remark after the definition:

2. The plaything called Cup-and-ball; the game played with it, which consists in catching the ball either on the cup or spike end of the stick.
[A typical example of popular etymology is afforded by the corruption of -quet = ket, to ketch, catch, so as to associate it with the action of the game; in Bilbao catch we have the more deliberate perversion of pseudo-scholarship.]

Here are the citations, which show a pleasing variety of forms:

1743 H. Walpole Let. 4 Apr. in Lett. to H. Mann I. 265 To set up the noble game of bilboquet.
1801 M. Edgeworth Good French Governess in Moral Tales V. 26 Bilboquets, battledores, and shuttlecocks.
1808 J. Austen Let. 24 Oct. 150 Bilbocatch, at which George is indefatigable.
1812 Monthly Mag. 33 26 He made great use of a bilbao-catch (note, said to have come hither from Bilbao, in Spain, and thence to have its name) or ivory cup and spike.
1832 W. Hone Year Bk. 1297 To the hautboy succeeded the bilbo-catch, or bilver-ketch.
1875 W. D. Parish Dict. Sussex Dial.   Bibler-catch.

Every week Lev Oborin posts a roundup of recent literary news, and I read them faithfully; this week’s brought to my attention the Petersburg poet Alla Gorbunova (Russian Wikipedia), who’s written a couple of books of prose — the brand-new one, «Конец света, моя любовь» [The end of the world, my love], sounded so good (Galina Yuzefovich in her review said it might be the book of the year) that I promptly bought an electronic copy and loved the title story (the first in the collection), in which the narrator describes her childish fear that the world would end and says that when she got older she realized the worst thing is that everything stays the same: мир обманул меня и оказался твердым, совсем твердым…. счастье — ето ожидание конца света [the world deceived me and turned out to be solid, completely solid…. happiness is waiting for the end of the world].

Her first book of prose, Вещи и ущи, a collection of very short pieces, came out in 2017; I’ll translate the title “Things and mings,” which will be explained by my translation of the title piece (you can read the original here, near the bottom of the page):

Mings

Things made from mind are distinguished from things made from matter by their history. The history of things made from matter is the history of material and master, machine and shelf. The history of things made from mind is the history of imagination. These two histories flow in parallel, but sometimes come together. For convenience we will call things made from matter “things,” and things made from mind “mings” [ущи, a combination of вещи ‘things’ and ум ‘mind’]. In each thing there is always some ming, even if only a little. The history of matter always includes the history of imagination. Most people have never seen pure mings, but I have. I love the history of things, but it may be that one day we will be living in a world consisting of mings. Sometimes I can’t tell immediately whether what’s before me is a thing or a ming, because at first glance they look identical. Then I begin to investigate the history of the object, and right away it becomes clear whether it’s a thing or a ming. But here too it’s possible to make a mistake and attribute the history of a thing to a ming or vice versa. There are people who interact perfectly well with things but on the plane of mings are completely helpless, and there are great masters of mings who are like little children when it comes to things. There’s no doubt that I have a certain talent for mings; in the first place, I can see them, and in the second place, I can perform various actions with them and even create them at will. As for things, the more ming there is in them, the easier it is for me to deal with them. Some things have very little ming in them. They say there is a dark sea in which mings cannot be born, and I fear that one day I will drown in it.

I have a weakness for the prose of poets, and I like that kind of thing a lot.

Update. Tatyana Korolyova has a review of «Конец света, моя любовь» that Gorbunova herself likes and recommends. Also, I got a hard copy of the book because I was enjoying it so much and was tired of reading it on my iPhone, and I have ordered a copy of «Вещи и ущи».

Update (June 2023). «Конец света, моя любовь» has now been translated by Elina Alter as It’s the End of the World, My Love, and Sarah Gear reviews it for the TLS (June 2, 2023):

Near the beginning of It’s the End of the World, My Love, Alla Gorbunova describes a point in her early adolescence when she understood that the world could be divided into material, astral and spiritual planes. Among the inhabitants of the astral plane she lists “egregores”, a collective consciousness belonging to the ancient Karelian forest rooted in this novel’s heart. Gorbunova’s opening concerns her youth in 1990s Saint Petersburg, but it isn’t long before the astral plane begins to seep into the material one. The author shifts between autofiction and dark, Lyudmila Petrushevskayalike fables, her rich Russian prose beautifully captured by Elina Alter’s translation.

Gorbunova’s stories span a time of intense change both in her own life and in the world around her. Her journey from childhood to adulthood parallels Russia’s transition from Communism to post-1991 economic chaos, to a new form of stability at the end of the millennium. These seismic shifts represent the end of the world of the novel’s title, bringing into question the very fabric of post-Soviet reality.

The gateway between this material reality and the astral plane is the Motor Bar, which sits at the edge of the Karelian forest. A beautiful woman, dead and maggot-infested, visits the bar every Saturday night, reminding its patrons of their forgotten link to the “dark Russian homeland”. The ancient woods are a place to commune with the dead. Talking swans live there, as do carnivorous trees and magical lovers who appear in mirrors. A boy gets lost and turns into a tree, and the folkloric figure Joulupukki hunts for naughty children to eat. A young woman, perhaps the author herself, is trapped in the woods following a trauma, now only half remembered. She is resurrected and self-aware for one day every summer. On this day her adult self sits beside her, detached from her past and unaware of her presence, though later the two commune in their dreams.

For Gorbunova the woods represent a kind of Eden. Along with the collective consciousness of the astral, they house the “Divine Spark” of the spiritual plane, where individual consciousness, love, fear and trauma reside. They represent sanctuary and danger, and the possibility of redemption. Immutable and deadly, the magical forest is the only “real” world, experienced by children and the dying; it is forgotten by adults at their peril.

Update (Nov. 2025). «Вещи и ущи» has been translated, again by Elina Alter, as (Th)ings and (Th)oughts. I think that’s a brilliant Englishing of the title, and I doff my cap to Alter.

Cardiff University student creates Welsh scientific words (BBC):

A Cardiff University student carrying out research into fatal diseases found many of the medical terms did not exist in his mother tongue. But far from being dissuaded, Bedwyr Ab Ion Thomas decided to make up Welsh words to explain his studies. The 23-year-old now hopes to have made a mini dictionary of new terms to help others by the time he finishes his PhD. “I hope that I can contribute not only to science but also to the Welsh language,” he said.

The medicinal chemistry student from Cardiff is attempting to develop treatments for rare diseases, such as mad cow disease, kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), for which there are currently no cures. But carrying out his research in Welsh has brought up some “extra challenges”, with many of the scientific terms used only existing in English or Latin. One example is a binding pocket – where a drug would bind in a protein – which he translates as “poced feindio”. “These inconsistencies emphasise the need for scientific terms in Welsh to be standardised to avoid confusion,” he said. […]

Professor Simon Ward, director at the university’s Medicines Discovery Institute, said it was “important” to show you could study any topic in Welsh. “You don’t just have to be studying Welsh poetry in the Middle Ages – you can also do cutting-edge scientific research,” he said.

Of course a lot of people will say it’s a waste of time, but if the Welsh want to talk about mad cow disease in Welsh, more power to them, say I. (Thanks, Trevor!)

Also, I’ve recommended the delightful 1941 comedy Ball of Fire more than once (2011, 2013, 2016), but my wife and I watched it again last night and I feel compelled to do so again. Not only does it star Gary Cooper as a linguist and Barbara Stanwyck as the tough dame who provides the slang he needs for his encyclopedia, it’s full of great dialogue like “It’s as red as the Daily Worker and just as sore.” Don’t miss it if you can, in the immortal (alleged) words of Sam Goldwyn.

Also also, Dmitry Pruss would like to know about any authoritative scholarly work in German about Russian patronymics; a marriage application (not his) is being rejected by German authorities because the birth certificate lists the prospective groom with a patronymic, but his Western IDs don’t have any middle name. Dmitry says:

I believe that a letter in German Legalese or faux Legalese, citing scholarly work about what a Russian patronymic is and why it isn’t a middle name (or indeed any part of an English name) may suffice in his quest. But I don’t know how to find the relevant work in German 🙂

Thanks in advance for any help!