Vocabulary from Other Places and Times

One fun thing about reading books written in different times or places is the vocabulary. Sometimes I scribble the interesting ones down. Some I've heard before but not often; some I haven't. From Northwest Passage (so far), written in 1937 about life in New England and elsewhere in North American in the latter 1700s:

• ropewalk 
• mensurations 
• towcloth
• furbelowed 
• gundelos with lateen sails 
• "as thick as bones in a shad"

And more fun words and phrases, from Nevil Shute's Pastoral, written in England in 1944:

• deal (noun used as an adjective, as in, "the deal wash stand", "a deal chair")
• batwoman (not Batwoman)
• hutment 
• roach bag (I think this was literal, as in bait for fishing)
• gentles (in relation to fishing)
• "it had been wizard!"

Internet will reveal all--relax and enjoy the searches and all the fun things you'll learn within just a few minutes!--good places to start are:

• https://www.onelook.com/, a whole collection of dictionaries.  Merriam-Webster particular for American and Collins particularly for British/Commonwealth
• Wikipedia, info on so very very many things

What interesting words have you encountered lately while reading?

Idiomatic English Expressions--Learning Through Comic Strips

Great idea: This person is teaching English conversation in Brazil, and he has set up this blog (Natively Speaking Comic Strips) to clarify idiomatic expressions that appear in comic strips. He says: "Every day you will be able to learn a phrasal verb and an idiomatic expression in context through a comic strip on my blog... and if you have a Facebook account you will be able to write a practice sentence in a post on my wall... and then I will correct it in a comment to you."

He also has a facebook fan page for the blog.

More Misheard English and Folk Songs

Here's another tricky phrase: "Dog eat dog," usually used in "It's a dog-eat-dog world," meaning that the competition is fierce and only the strongest and fittest survive. Thanks to Lucy and Walter, we've realized that the pronunciation sounds almost exactly like "doggy dog." "It's a doggy dog world" doesn't convey any meaning at all, really, but we can understand how someone might hear it that way.

Which reminds me of a folk tune, Sarah the Whale. (For another intriguing exploration of language, left as an exercise for the reader, do a web search for "Sara whale teeth miles" (some of the more-common words) and see how many variants there are.) One of the stanzas as I learned it is:

When she smiles, she just shows teeth for miles and miles,
and tonsils, and spare ribs, and things too fierce to mention.

I was surprised about 4 years ago, when perusing some of the lyric variants, to discover that one site spelled it out as "and things to fierce dimension," I suppose along the lines of "to [a] great degree". Once again, "to mention" and "dimension" can sound amazingly alike, especially when sung.

There are plenty of sites (and books) about misheard lyrics, as discussed in my 2005 post, The Lady Mondegreen Sings Christmas Carols.

Misheard English--Intensive Purposes

Have you heard this one? "...for all intensive purposes..."

It's certainly an interesting, and unintentional, twist on the phrase "for all intents and purposes." And, apparently, not an uncommon mistake. For more discussions:

• Wiki.Answers.com


• Answers.com


• Another blogger comments and gives more links