- Time of past OR future Camino
- Recent:Norte/Muxia- Spring '23
MadridWay- Fall '23
Not me in Illinois. I call it a plastic bowl or a dish pan...never heard anyone say basin in my neck of the woods.
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Not me in Illinois. I call it a plastic bowl or a dish pan...never heard anyone say basin in my neck of the woods.Yet another English - American word difference I for one have a plastic bowl in my sink, however we Americans call them basins.
Roughly 35,000 square years or 35 square millennia?And that's change that's happened in only 50 years. Multiply that by roughly 700 years.
It is indeed a puzzlementI suppose the differences in English in former colonies compared to the homeland isn't so strange - perhaps it is strange that the divergence isn't more.
So .. idly thinking here. 14th Century Geoffery Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. The first person to write published works in the English language. Two children of his grew up and had children. All three generations spoke English to each other without any problems, from grandparents to grandchildren - stay with me here ... those children had children ... down the centuries there were always three, sometimes four, generations, from children to grandparents, even great grandparents, who all spoke clear understandable English to each other, without any known suspicion of change, alteration, or problem.
So - from Chaucer to now is perhaps 26 to 30 generations, all the generations speaking and writing clear and understandable English to each other - so, I ask myself, how on earth did it happen that if Chaucer and I were in the same room today we would be totally unable to speak to each other, each of us would have what appears to be a completely foreign language??? .. just wondering, as you do ....
Basins are what I cook Christmas puddings in!Not me in Illinois. I call it a plastic bowl or a dish pan...never heard anyone say basin in my neck of the woods.
I remember being taught in university classes that you could walk from village to village across Europe and the people in every village would be able to understand the dialects spoken in the neighboring villages. The dialect of French spoken by a village bordering Germany would be so close to the dialect of German spoken in a village bordering France that they would be completely mutually intelligible. I'm not sure if that is still the case, what with the effects of mass communications and common education standardizing languages and moving them away from local dialects, but it was certainly once seen to be the case. If an unbroken line from French to German is possible, an unbroken line from Middle English to Modern English seems easy by comparison.I suppose the differences in English in former colonies compared to the homeland isn't so strange - perhaps it is strange that the divergence isn't more.
So .. idly thinking here. 14th Century Geoffery Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. The first person to write published works in the English language. Two children of his grew up and had children. All three generations spoke English to each other without any problems, from grandparents to grandchildren - stay with me here ... those children had children ... down the centuries there were always three, sometimes four, generations, from children to grandparents, even great grandparents, who all spoke clear understandable English to each other, without any known suspicion of change, alteration, or problem.
So - from Chaucer to now is perhaps 26 to 30 generations, all the generations speaking and writing clear and understandable English to each other - so, I ask myself, how on earth did it happen that if Chaucer and I were in the same room today we would be totally unable to speak to each other, each of us would have what appears to be a completely foreign language??? .. just wondering, as you do ....
I think the concept you are looking for is Dialect continuum. Worth looking at the corresponding French or Spanish Wikipedia article as it has different graphics to illustrate the article.I remember being taught in university classes that you could walk from village to village across Europe and the people in every village would be able to understand the dialects spoken in the neighboring villages. The dialect of French spoken by a village bordering Germany would be so close to the dialect of German spoken in a village bordering France that they would be completely mutually intelligible.
Interesting that the graphics in the French and Spanish articles correspond much more closely to modern political borders. It is certainly what was being talked about in the classes I took, although my memory of the classes 30 years ago was that the line was not presented as so firm between the different language groups in the border areas.I think the concept you are looking for is Dialect continuum. Worth looking at the corresponding French or Spanish Wikipedia article as it has different graphics to illustrate the article.
The classic public french urinal is called a "Pissoir" You also get them in the UK.
I don’t doubt you (well, maybe a teeny weeny bit), but please be kind enough to give an example of a “pissoir” in the UK (wondering if I’ve stumbled into the Not A Serious Thread by accident . . . . )
Ha ha, is that the only one?
More word crimes are found in the amusing book on punctuation that I finally got around to reading last week, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It has a bit about the difference between British and American punctuation styles.It's linguistic drift
And then there is Weird Al doing his best to keep everything well anchored: Word Crimes
I remember being taught in university classes that you could walk from village to village across Europe and the people in every village would be able to understand the dialects spoken in the neighboring villages.
I loved that. Weird Al is awesome!It's linguistic drift
And then there is Weird Al doing his best to keep everything well anchored: Word Crimes
Haha! I thought all grammarians were pedants.Weird Al is awesome!
When it removes ambiguity or is needed for a pause, yes. But otherwise.... pedantry, like many commas, is optional.(But I disagree and will indulge in a little pedantic opinion. The Oxford comma stays. Sorry.
This one is attached to a Pub in Harborne on the high street. In my student days I used to go to concerts at the Pub and use this facility on the way back to my digs.Ha ha, is that the only one?
Really!!! Where I come from it absolutely is a generic term for dessert. I don't ever recall using the word 'dessert' in my childhood, whereas 'what's for pudding' was used regularly.In case no one has mentioned it.
Pudding is a dessert.
It is Not a generic term for dessert.
Really!!! Where I come from it absolutely is a generic term for dessert. I don't ever recall using the word 'dessert' in my childhood, whereas 'what's for pudding' was used regularly.
Not quite true there are savoury puddings. eg steak and kidney pudding (not pie) and Ham and Leek suet pudding.In case no one has mentioned it.
Pudding is a dessert.
It is Not a generic term for dessert.
That would always be the mens!Most of the time when I get to a a place on a camino...and sometimes elsewhere....that has a choice of gender designated bathrooms, I go to the one without a line...no time to wait....
There is a UK North/South divide concerning the name of the mid day meal. In the North especially in working class homes it is called "Dinner" in the South it is called "Lunch" and sometimes referred to as Luncheon.I remember some Spanish pilgrims expressing some confusion over the word supper. I suspect that supper/dinner may be a regional or class usage issue more than a national one. Dictionaries seem to make the definition of dinner to be the main meal and it could be the mid-day (especially in the old farming days) and supper a lighter, evening meal if dinner was around noon.
When I was a kid dinner and supper was the same thing and called both but almost always called supper. We were unusual for having it fairly early, about 5:00, with a snack, usually toast later in the evening.
And this brings up tea, the British late afternoon or early evening light fare taken with the drink. Did that cause confusion on the camino?
Pudding is a dessert.
It is Not a generic term for dessert.
I remember some Spanish pilgrims expressing some confusion over the word supper. I suspect that supper/dinner may be a regional or class usage issue more than a national one.
I really don't think they are the same word.English pudding and French boudin (black pudding) are exactly the same word.
Boudin noir is hardly a "dessert" !!!
Yes, it is a generic term for dessert in some regions - "for pudding we can have ice cream or cake." My English sister-in-law uses it that way, but I never would.Pudding is a dessert.
It is Not a generic term for dessert.
When you sup with the devil you need a long spoon! In use since at least the 14th Century!From French souper, originally meaning just "a meal" ...
The word "supper" is used rarely, but still properly, to mean any meal at all -- so one's breakfast can be referred to as a supper.
I really don't think they are the same word.
Generally words have two components: a phonetic component (the sounds) and a semantic component (the meaning). If you have the same sounds but different meanings, it isn't the same word - it's a homonym. If you have the same meaning but different sounds, it still isn't the same word - it's a synonym. In this case you have neither the same sound nor the same meaning. And, in fact, you have completely different languages. That hardly results in exactly the same word.
What you may have is a common etymology. However, etymology is hardly the same thing as meaning. If it were, we'd be paying doctor's and lawyer's fees in cattle all the time.
Or, another way to look at it is that they may be cognates - words in different languages with the same linguistic derivation. However, I would be very embarrassed to say that cognates essentially have the same meaning, especially to someone travelling in Spain (see English "embarrased" vs. Spanish "embarazada")
I really don't think they are the same word.
Generally words have two components: a phonetic component (the sounds) and a semantic component (the meaning). If you have the same sounds but different meanings, it isn't the same word - it's a homonym. If you have the same meaning but different sounds, it still isn't the same word - it's a synonym. In this case you have neither the same sound nor the same meaning. And, in fact, you have completely different languages. That hardly results in exactly the same word.
What you may have is a common etymology. However, etymology is hardly the same thing as meaning. If it were, we'd be paying doctor's and lawyer's fees in cattle all the time.
Or, another way to look at it is that they may be cognates - words in different languages with the same linguistic derivation. However, I would be very embarrassed to say that cognates essentially have the same meaning, especially to someone travelling in Spain (see English "embarrased" vs. Spanish "embarazada")
True, NYC! In America at least it is.In case no one has mentioned it.
Pudding is a dessert.
It is Not a generic term for dessert.
Black pudding is blood sausage. I've had it in Ireland and England for breakfast. Definately not a pudding dessert.English pudding and French boudin (black pudding) are exactly the same word.
Boudin noir is hardly a "dessert" !!!
Black pudding is blood sausage. I've had it in Ireland and England for breakfast. Definately not a pudding dessert..
Oh, you're good, your good! I didn't "catch" a double meaning when I wrote it.I’m gobsmacked!
Of course, I don't disagree with anything that the OED has to say. I will note, however, that the OED is an etymological dictionary with a strong focus on the history of words. In keeping with that, it orders its definitions chronologically rather than by usage. It also includes any word used in English after 1100, so includes many obsolete words and senses. It is a dictionary of historical English rather than Modern English. For them, the "primary" meaning is the earliest meaning, not the most common or typical usage as other dictionaries would have it. The note that you provide is focused, as expected, on the etymology of the word from Middle English. As you say, "the other a phonetically variated Anglo-Norman". None of us are speaking Anglo-Norman.Sorry, but in this case, the French boudin and English pudding are both fundamentally French variants, the one official modern French, the other a phonetically variated Anglo-Norman.
A note in the OED 2nd Edition, 2009, has :
Note. ME. poding, mod. pudding, and F. †bodin, boudin, have so many points in common that, but for the difficulties of form, they would at once be identified as the same word. They both appear first in the 13th century, had at first exactly the same sense (still retained in Sc.), and agree to a great extent in their transferred uses. Even the difference of form is not insuperable; p for Fr. or L. b occurs also in purse, L. bursa, F. bourse, and the existence of Eng. words in pud- (see below) might by a species of folk-etymology facilitate the substitution here; final -in might be identified with Eng. -ing; the interchange of -ing and -in is actually seen in the later puddin, pudden. The identity of the words, though highly probable, cannot however be held to be proved, and the matter is rendered more uncertain by the absence of any certain derivation of the Fr. Word.
Take note that the primary meaning of pudding in English, whilst now used rather little in the standard forms of the language, is :
I. 1.I.1 a.I.1.a The stomach or one of the entrails of a pig, sheep, or other animal, stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, suet, oatmeal, seasoning, etc., boiled and kept till needed; a kind of sausage: for different varieties, see black, hog's, white pudding. Now chiefly Sc. and dial. (ibid.)
(and sorry, but I don't really need the generalities that you wrote of explained to me)
BTW the French for pudding when it refers to the English cake called so is .... pudding.
Norway, to be specific. Leiv Eriksson was the name of the leader. Although he's said to be Icelandic, it's not correct. Long story.I would be inclined to think that the first Europeans to establish a settlement in northern America were vikings from Scandinavia.
None of us are speaking Anglo-Norman.
Of course, I don't disagree with anything that the OED has to say.
I will note, however, that the OED is an etymological dictionary
it orders its definitions chronologically rather than by usage.
It also includes any word used in English after 1100
It is a dictionary of historical English rather than Modern English.
But if you don't need the generalities explained to you, I am unclear why you seem to be saying that etymologies and obsolete meanings should be used for modern words.
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Again, not true -- the definitions are ordered semantically ; so that when the ordinary usage is a derived meaning, the definition that it is derived from is listed before. But where possible, OED puts the standard definition first ; in any case as high up in the list of definitions as is possible within that semantic structure. Well, the 2nd Edition does anyway ...
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erm, again no ... it is NOT a dictionary of Middle English
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I'm not sure if you looked properly at the "Dial. and Sc." mention in the OED primary definition of pudding, but these indicate that it is not an "etymological" or "obsolete" one (which are designated by etym. and obs. respectively), but that it is in current modern usage in dialects of the language and in Scots English. That original definition is also still in use in the standard English black pudding, white pudding, etc.
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One of those "exceptions that prove the rule" if you like, or if you prefer it's one of those fringe examples that helps towards a deeper understanding of the reasoning behind the theories and generalities.
The footnote in the Wikipedia article above points to the OED's own site where it says "The OED is a historical dictionary and very different from dictionaries of current English where the focus is on present-day meanings."As a historical dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary explains words by showing their development rather than merely their present-day usages.[6] Therefore, it shows definitions in the order that the sense of the word began being used, including word meanings which are no longer used.
As to the ordering of the entries, I quote the OED itself "The sense section consists of one or more definitions, each with its paragraph of illustrative quotations, arranged chronologically."
And, of course, I shouldn't mention that when we say that exceptions "prove" the rule, we are using an obsolete sense for the word "prove", as in "test the rule" rather than "demonstrate that the rule is correct".
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