Language Trainers Blog

Source: reuters.com

Recently I blogged about how the internet was instrumental in helping to coin and spread new phrases in China. However, as with all things, there is another side to the coin.

The internet has also been responsible for particular other words and phrases gaining notoriety around the world, words that have become so overused and misused that they have made a list of ‘banished words’ for 2011, as collated by Lake Superior State University, a small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. They make one of these every year, the first list made back in 1976, when the “winner” was “at this point in time”.

Unsurprisingly, well-known phrases that are ubiquitous on the internet had no delay in being included on the list – the words “epic” and “fail”, often seen together, were shoe-ins for a list of banished words. The word “epic”, originally referring to the works of great Greek and Roman poets for the tales of heroes and Gods that they penned, has now come to be a word that is thrown around so much that it has lost all emphatic purpose. The word was being used (and overused) back when I was at college, all those years ago (“dude, that is so epic“), but today it seems to have reached a critical mass.

Likewise, “fail” (not “failure”), referring to something that has met disaster, has been not only seen uttered by the online masses but has pervaded offline communication, too – a few months ago I saw somebody trip over in a mall, and somebody nearby laughed and condescendingly shouted “Ha! Fail”. The term being used this way originated online, where it was used as a caption for photos depicting something going horribly wrong. For something gone completely and disastrously wrong, the term “epic fail” is often used.

However, these two strong contenders were not hackneyed enough to make the number 1 spot: that was left for the term “viral”.

“Viral,” often used to describe the rapid spreading of videos or other content over the Internet, leads the list for 2011.

“This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined,” Kuahmel Allah of Los Angeles said in making a nomination.

With the ever-increasing popularity of social bookmarking and news aggregation sites, where people submit links to online content which increases in visibility on the site the more votes it receives from viewers, the word “viral” (or the phrase “going/gone viral”) is used to describe content that has reached a certain (yet undefined) huge amount of attention from online viewers. A recent example was the video of a homeless man called Ted who has a fantastic radio voice – when I first watched the video it had around 70,000 views and I felt like I was late to the party. The video was eventually pulled citing ridiculous copyright claims, but by that point had amassed well over 10 million views – using the parlance of our times, the video had most definitely “gone viral”.

Unlike “epic fail”, at least the etymology of the term “viral” makes sense – the more people view the content, the more they link it to their friends and contacts, whether by email, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other communication channel they might like. Their friends and contacts are likely to do the same, thus the content spreads like a virus.

Other words and phrases that made the list include “wow factor,” “a-ha moment,” “back story” and “BFF” (Best Friends Forever). The conversion of the words “Facebook” and “Google” from nouns to being used as verbs also gained the ire of the listmakers.

I’m a little relieved to know that I’m not the only one who gets a little irked by the overuse of these kinds of words. Obviously the ‘banning’ of such words is a light-hearted dig at how these words have come to be thrown around too much, but personally, I could do without hearing the word “epic” used in every other sentence sometimes…

“Boo!” is a short sound that all English speakers will be aware of, used to startle or surprise somebody. “Peek-a-boo” is an ever-popular game to play with babies.

Though sources place the origins of the word as from the Latin verb boare (Greek boaein), “to cry aloud, roar, or shout”, it’s a slightly strange word, only used in this way as an interjection.

Like my very first post on this blog, about onomatepoeias and how they differ around the world, it’s interesting to see how expressive sounds like “boo” differ from country to country.

Surprisingly, most European countries retain the “boo” sound, though spelling differs slightly. In Spanish and Portuguese it’s “bú”, German “buuu”, French “bouh”, Dutch “boe”, Swedish “bu”, Norwegian “bø”, and Danish “bøh”.

However, in Asian countries the sound differs. In Japan, “buu” is the sound a pig makes – our “boo” is “waa” to them. In Laos and Thailand they say “ja”, and in China they say “pēi”.

Source: reddit.com

As a regular user of Reddit – the best news aggregation and social bookmarking site on the internet – I’m often filled with a sense of glee when a topic like this arises. One user asked Reddit what their favorite “culturally untranslatable phrase” was, and it prompted an outpouring of fantastic idioms from other users – some hilarious, some witty, some downright weird.

Some of my picks (thank you to the individual users who submitted these!) included the original poster’s Bangladeshi phrase, “gacche kathal gophe tel”, which roughly translates to “oiling your mustache in anticipation of the jackfruit tree bearing fruit” (a similar synonym in English would be “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”).

Another excellent one was the Spanish “no te peines, que en la foto no salís”: “don’t comb your hair, you’re not going to be in the picture”. This would be used to tell somebody not to get too excited as the matter under discussion doesn’t concern them.

Another excellent Spanish addition was “cuanto mas alto trepa el mono, más se le ve el culo”: “the higher the monkey climbs, the easier it is to see its rear end”. This comes to mean that the more famous you become, the more the dirtier aspects of your private life will become known. Good advice!

The Pakistani phrase “mera damagh kharahayho” literally means “you’re eating my brains!”, and is used to tell somebody that they’re being particularly annoying!

One with particular significance to me since I’m currently learning Mandarin Chinese was “mă mă hū hū” (馬馬虎虎), literally translates to “horse horse tiger tiger”. Somehow, it comes to mean that something is “so-so”, or “passable”.

Source: blogs.nytimes.com

The New York Times are currently running a fascinating series of articles about American speech throughout the years. The sixth part is a compendium of the vocabulary of the average 1962 traffic policeman, and contains some interesting definitions. It seems that quite a few are still in use today.

The specialist vocabulary came about as a result of the nature of the job, and the language is of a “highly confidential nature, being used almost exclusively on the job or in talking about the job, and usually in speaking to another policeman, to an insurance investigator, or to a traffic engineer”. A lot of it is quite coarse, too, due to it being part of a male-dominated profession.

Some of the vocabulary is amusing, some of it interesting from an etymological point of view, some of it is surprising that they needed a term for a particular person or situation.

Some examples from the article:

American taxpayer: A traffic law violator who loudly proclaims immunity because he is paying the policeman’s salary.

Bag case: A fatality in which a corpse is in such condition that it must be transported in a rubber bag or sheet.

Chinese fire drill: An accident scene of great confusion, such as a school bus or cattle truck upset.

Hunt owls: To have headlights so high as to blind other motorists.

Pajama badge: An overly zealous officer. “When he goes to bed, he even wears a pajama badge!”

Toe ticket: The last citation that a habitual violator receives-the identification ticket that is tied to the great toe in the morgue.

Volunteer: A motorist, usually a teenager of either sex, who deliberately commits a violation in front of a patrolman. No patrolman interviewed could offer any explanation for the conduct.

As someone who studied the classics (Latin & Greek) at university, I’m occasionally reminded of one of my favorite parts of my studies – the mythology. Some of the greatest stories ever told were immortalized in prose or verse in Greek or Latin by some of the greatest writers ever to have lived: take Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad as prime examples. True, many of these stories had their roots in the folklore of other civilizations, but most are remembered for their epic retellings in Latin and Greek.

There are many words and idioms in English that take their cues from characters and incidents from Greek mythology, a process known as eponymy. English inherits a lot of derivations from Greek and Latin, but some are direct links to the mythologies, and have similar names. Take a few examples:

Herculean: something particularly arduous or laborious. The word stems from the story of the 12 Labors of Hercules. The story is that Hercules was driven temporarily mad by the troublemaking goddess Hera, and in his state of insanity he murdered his wife and children. Once he had recovered and seen what he had done, he asked Apollo how he could ever make up for it, and the oracle told him to go visit the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, King Eurystheus, and serve him for 12 years. The king made a list of 10 seemingly impossible tasks for Hercules to perform, which, with the help of Hermes and Athena, Hercules completed (he was made to do another 2 because Eurystheus claimed he had cheated at two of them).

Promethean: something or someone that is boldly innovative. Prometheus was a Titan who is famous for stealing fire from Zeus (King of the Gods) and giving it to humans. He was then punished by Zeus, and had one of the several ‘eternal punishments’ – bound to a rock and having a giant eagle eat his liver every day, only for his liver to grow back before the start of the next day. The meaning of the word “Promethean” refers to his theft of fire rather than his punishment, but in fact several pharmaceutical companies have taken on his name to emphasize the regenerative nature of their medicine!

Aphrodisiac: something that arouses sexual desire. Most people know what this word means, but don’t associate it with the name of the Greek goddess of love, lust and beauty – Aphrodite.

Echo: a very common word, which takes its roots from a mountain nymph of the same name. Punished by Hera, she could only repeat the last few words of sentences uttered by other people. She also happened to fall in love with someone called Narcissus, which brings us to…

Narcissistic: meaning overly vain or self-obsessed. This stems from a character called Narcissus, who was so vain that he had only disdain for the girls that fell in love with him, but ended up falling in love himself… with his own reflection. In the original myth he was unable to tear himself away from his own beauty, and ended up wasting away and dying.

Mentor: again, a very common word, but with surprising roots. Mentor was actually an old, wise friend of Odysseus who gave him advice. Nowadays it is used to describe someone who is a trusted guide or counselor. But this brings us neatly to…

Odyssey: used these days to mean an epic adventure, this originally comes from the hero of Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Odysseus. His certainly was an epic adventure, and with continually changing fortunes.

Siren: generally refers to any loud sound that is supposed to attract attention or give a warning. This word actually derives from the Greek sea nymph, Siren, who would sit on a rock and sing sweetly to attract passing sailors. The sailors would be unable to resist the sweet sounds, and would head towards her. Unfortunately, their boats would usually be scuppered on the rocks.

This is just a small selection of words derived from Greek mythological characters – there are many more!

My European journey will soon take me to Austria, where German is the spoken language (although, as you might imagine, the dialect and vocabulary differs from the German spoken in Germany itself). While brushing up on my German, I came upon some interesting German idioms – some of which have similar sayings in English, but others are a little odd for English speakers to comprehend. Here are some examples!

Schwein haben – literally “to have a pig” – means “to be lucky”

Blech reden – literally “to talk brass” – means “to talk nonsense”

auf 180 sein – literally “to be on 180″ – means “to throw a fit” or “to be in a rage”

auf die Palme bringen – literally “to drive (someone) up a palm tree” – means “to make (somebody) angry” (a similar English idiom would be “to drive (someone) up the wall”)

seinen Hut nehmen – literally “to take one’s hat” – means “to quit” or “to resign”

den Löffel abgeben – literally “to hand over the spoon” – means “to die” (a similar English idiom would be “to bite the dust”)

It’s a common thing to hear misquoted song lyrics (perhaps the most famous example is from Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” instead of “kiss the sky”), but occasionally you hear people mangling English idioms in equally hilarious ways. This is due in part to the heavily idiomatic nature of English.

The technical name for this is a Mondegreen – slightly different from a malapropism (or, when attributed to a certain former president, a Bushism).

Recently a friend was talking about fixing spelling errors in his college thesis as he wrote each chapter, claiming that he wanted to “nip it in the butt”. He didn’t understand why I was laughing so hard. The correct version is “nip it in the bud”, as in pruning plants – to cut it at the bud to stop it from growing again. His version was certainly funnier, but didn’t quite convey the same idea.

I also recently overheard somebody in public saying that something was a “pigment of my imagination”. I didn’t have the heart (or the balls) to correct them.

Perhaps one of the most famous Mondegreens is from a Britney Spears song, If You Seek Amy. The lyric in question goes:

All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy

At first this doesn’t really make much sense, but replace the last four words with their phonetic equivalent, and you get something else entirely:

All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to eff yoo see kay me

She’s a smart one, that Britney.

When you’re very hungry, you might say that you could eat a horse, at least in English. If you translated this or other idioms literally into other languages, people might not know what you were talking about.

Spanish speakers also talk about horses when they’re really hungry – Estoy tan hambriento que podría tragarme un caballo (I’m so hungry I could eat a bull), although in Argentina they say – Tengo tanto hambre que me comería una vaca entera (I’m so hungry I could eat a whole cow).

In French it’s a bull rather than a horse that people claim to be able to eat when they’re famished – Je mangerais un boeuf. Or you might have the hunger of a wolf – J’ai un faim de loup. In Canadian French they do talk about horses when hungry though: J’ai tellement faim que je pourrais manger un cheval avec ses fers (I’m so hungry I could eat a horse with its horseshoes on), or even elephants: J’ai tellement faim que je pourrais manger un éléphant.

In Italian the equivalent expression is: ho una fame che mi mangerei un bue (I’m so hungry I would eat an ox).

Portuguese speakers talk about eating horses or oxen: Tenho tanta fome que comeria um cavalo (I’m so hungry I could eat a horse), or Tenho tanta fome que comeria um boi com guampa e tudo (I’m so hungry that I”d eat an ox with horn and everything). They also say, Estou com uma fome de leão (I’m hungry as a lion).

In German hunger, bears and wolves go together: Ich bin so hungrig wie ein Wolf (I am as hungry as a wolf) or Ich habe einen Bärenhunger (I have the hunger of a bear.

Czech speakers get so hungry that they could eat nails: Mám hlad, že bych hřebíky polykal(a)! (I’m as hungry that I should swallow/gobble even nails!).

When you go looking around the shops but don’t buy anything or even go inside them, you would say that you’re “window shopping” in English, even though you’re probably not shopping for windows,

In French you go “window licking” (faire du leche-vitrine).

In German you can go on a “shop window ramble” (Schaufensterbummel), while in Swedish the phrase means the same as in English – fönstershoppa (window shopping).

In Italian, Spanish and Portuguese you “go to the shop windows” (andare a vedere le vetrine / ir de escaparates / ir ver vitrines)

In Chinese the equivalent of this phrase is 逛街 (guàng jiē) or “street wandering/strolling” – this expression also means  to take a walk and to stroll down the street.

The equivalent phrase in Japanese is a transliteration of the English phrase -  ウィンドーショッピング (windōshoppingu).

If you think something is very unlikely to happen you might make references to flying pigs to signal your disbelief. Or you might talk about plummeting temperatures in hell. That will happen when pigs fly / when pigs have wings / when hell freezes over, you might say.

Flying pigs are also thought highly unlikely in Norwegian – når griser flyr (when pigs fly),  Swedish – när grisar flyger (when pigs fly), German – wenn Schweine fliegen können (when pigs can fly) or wenn Schweine Flügel hätten, wäre alles möglich (if pigs had wings, everything would be possible), and Welsh – pan fydd moch yn hedfan (when pigs fly).

The possibility of cows flying is considered unlikely in Finnish – sitten kun lehmät lentävät (when cows fly) or jos lehmällä olisi siivet, se lentäisi (if cow had wings, it would fly), and also in Catalan – quan les vaques volin (when cows fly).

In Spanish flying cows are also rare – cuando las vacas vuelen (when cows fly), as are hairy frogs – cuando las ranas crien pelo (when frogs grow hair).

Flying donkeys are what you have to watch out for in Italy – quando voleranno gli asini (when donkeys will fly).

The idea of hens growing teeth is thought to be unlikely in French – quand les poules auront des dents (when hens have teeth), as is the idea of cows with wings – quand les vaches auront des ailes (when cows have wings).

In Russian the most unlikely event is thought to be whistling crayfish – Когда рак на горе свистнет (When the crayfish on the hill whistles).