Etymology

[The Boofon]

Online etymology dictionary

 

Utterly fascinating subject.

 

A Game of Chicken:

 

Gambling in medieval France was a simple business. All you needed were some friends, a pot, and a chicken. In fact, you didn’t need friends – you could do this with your enemies – but the pot and the chicken were essential.

 

 

First, each person puts an equal amount of money in the pot. Nobody should on any account make a joke about a poultry sum. Shoo the chicken away to a reasonable distance. What’s a reasonable distance? About a stone’s throw.

 

Next, pick up a stone. Now, you all take turns hurling stones at that poor bird, which will squawk and flap and run about. The first person to hit the chicken wins all the money in the pot. You then agree never to mention any of this to an animal rights campaigner.

 

That’s how the French played a game of chicken. The French, though, being French, called it a game of poule, which is French for chicken. And the chap who had won all the money had therefore won the jeu de poule.

 

The term got transferred to other things. At card games, the pot of money in the middle of the table came to be known as the poule. English gamblers picked the term up and brought it back with them in the seventeenth century. They changed the spelling to pool, but they still had a pool of money in the middle of the table.

 

 

Macaroni in the Yankee Doodle rhyme.

 

 

Yankee Doodle went to town,

Riding on a pony;

He stuck a feather in his hat,

And called it macaroni

 

Never ever understood what this bit in bold was all about. Turns out it's this:

 

 

 

macaroni (n.)

 

"tube-shaped food made of dried wheaten paste" [Klein], 1590s, from southern Italian dialectal maccaroni (It. maccheroni), plural of maccarone, name for a kind of pasty food, possibly from maccare "bruise, batter, crush," of unknown origin, or from late Gk. makaria "food made from barley."

 

Used after c.1764 to mean "fop, dandy" (e.g. "Yankee Doodle") because it was an exotic dish at a time when certain young men who had traveled the continent were affecting French and Italian fashions and accents. There is said to have been a Macaroni Club in Britain, which was the immediate source of the term.

 

As a term, Doodle first appeared in the early seventeenth century, and is thought to derive from the Low German dudel or dödel, meaning "fool" or "simpleton". The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became contemporary slang for foppishness.The implication of the verse was therefore probably that the Yankees were so unsophisticated that they thought simply sticking a feather in a cap would make them the height of fashion.

[BrianFaePerth]

Yer going all Phoenixx on us Boof.

 

Just add the 60s album cover and ye'll be all the road.

[The Oxford Don]

'Scouse' comes from a type of dish known as 'lobscouse' or 'lamb scouse', essentially a type of hotpot, favoured by poor (mainly Irish imigrant) people in the Liverpool area in the mid-late 19th century. The people who ate it, and their distinctive accent subsequently became known as Scousers or just plain scouse.

[BrianFaePerth]

'Scouse' comes from a type of dish known as 'lobscouse' or 'lamb scouse', essentially a type of hotpot, favoured by poor (mainly Irish imigrant) people in the Liverpool area in the mid-late 19th century.

 

It's known as "lapskaus" here and is an essential part of every baby's diet

[tup]

'Scouse' comes from a type of dish known as 'lobscouse' or 'lamb scouse', essentially a type of hotpot, favoured by poor (mainly Irish imigrant) people in the Liverpool area in the mid-late 19th century. The people who ate it, and their distinctive accent subsequently became known as Scousers or just plain scouse.

 

[The Boofon]

The origin of words that reproduce natural sounds is self-explanatory.

 

French or English, cuckoo and miaow are unquestionably onomatopoeias. The noun onomatopoeia is thought to has been first used in around 1577 AD. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word onomatopoeia originates from the Greek word onomatopoiia meaning 'word-making'. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary reports the onomatopoiia is derived from the Greek onoma 'name' and poiein 'to make'.

 

If we assume that growl belongs with gaggle, cackle, croak, and creak and reproduces the sound it designates, we will be able to go a bit further.

 

Quite a few words in the languages in the world begin with gr- and refer to things threatening or discordant. From Scandanavian, English has grue, the root of gruesome (an adjective popularized by Walter Scott), but Old Engl. gryre (horror) existed long before the emergence of grue-.

 

The epic hero Beowulf fought Grendel, an almost invincible monster. Whatever the origin of the name, it must have been frightening even to pronounce it."

[The Oxford Don]

It's known as "lapskaus" here and is an essential part of every baby's diet

 

Nice one! I love stuff like that. Amazing how many Scandi words thete are kicking around English slang, esp. of course in Scots.

[tup]

Nice one! I love stuff like that. Amazing how many Scandi words thete are kicking around English slang, esp. of course in Scots.

 

Agreed.

 

Maybe Brian would be good enough to translate the above for us.

[BrianFaePerth]

Nice one! I love stuff like that. Amazing how many Scandi words thete are kicking around English slang, esp. of course in Scots.

 

Aye, you'd be amazed how many English words come from over here, but not only that the place names around the UK for example Lerwick, Wick, York, Norwich, Peacehaven etc right off the top of my heid.

[The Boofon]

Nice one! I love stuff like that. Amazing how many Scandi words thete are kicking around English slang, esp. of course in Scots.

 

St

[tup]

Stenhousemuir is Norwegian for stone house wall.

[BrianFaePerth]

Støvsuger is Norwegian for vacuum cleaner. Translates as Stoor sooker or dusk sucker if you're posh.

 

Fitte is Norwegian for cunt, tho in Bergen it is pronounced "Tore Andre Flo"

 

Slang for pussy is "mus" which means mouse. Eh have obviously never used that double-entendre when helping a colleague out on her computer

[The Boofon]

Fitte is Norwegian for cunt, tho in Bergen it is pronounced "Tore Andre Flo"

 

Slang for pussy is "mus" which means mouse. Eh have obviously never used that double-entendre when helping a colleague out on her computer

 

 

Rompetroll is a tadpole or also an insult to an ugly child by calling them frog children.

[The Oxford Don]

Agreed.

 

Maybe Brian would be good enough to translate the above for us.

 

Bastard! Hate typing on my phone...

[The Boofon]

Bastard

 

 

 

"illegitimate child," early 13c., from O.Fr. bastard (11c., Mod.Fr. b

[Robbie Winters]

Stenhousemuir is Norwegian for stone house wall.

Not 100% as Mur is brick or steen in Norsk, some Pict turned it into Muir I reckon, So is there a Brick of Ord Tup ?

[The Boofon]

Not 100% as Mur is brick or steen in Norsk, some Pict turned it into Muir I reckon, So is there a Brick of Ord Tup ?

 

 

There's a Prick of Wick.

[tup]

Not 100% as Mur is brick or steen in Norsk, some Pict turned it into Muir I reckon, So is there a Brick of Ord Tup ?

 

I once knew a lassie from Muir of Ord.

 

Weird accent.

[The Oxford Don]

I once knew a lassie from Muir of Ord.

 

Weird accent.

 

Thank God someone else found the same.

 

I went to Muir of Ord once, and could not understand a single word anyone was saying. It was like I'd slipped through time and ended up in 18th century Holland or something.

 

Very odd.

[tup]

Thank God someone else found the same.

 

I went to Muir of Ord once, and could not understand a single word anyone was saying. It was like I'd slipped through time and ended up in 18th century Holland or something.

 

Very odd.

 

They've got a big yard there for getting bits for your tractor or digger. That's the main event in Muir of Ord.

 

Apart from that it's a complete shithole.