|
Post by questa on May 4, 2021 1:09:59 GMT
I just found this thread...my favourite subject...words!
Another queue is the name of the long plait that Chinese men wore in days gone by.
a modern snowflake is some young person who expects everything should be easy and needs someone to make decisions for them. "Melts" at the first sign of a difficulty.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on May 4, 2021 2:09:13 GMT
In what sense did she use it?! She never actually used it. She would just say it and snigger.
|
|
|
Post by questa on May 4, 2021 4:06:42 GMT
What about the airplane that taxis to its taking off area?
|
|
|
Post by questa on May 4, 2021 4:38:24 GMT
Heeby-jeebies is used to indicate fear, trepidation etc. I haven't checked it but I fancy it is a version of the things medieval people would mutter to embolden themselves in such a situation... "Here be Jesus, Here be Jesus"
In the Anglican prayer book the night time prayer up to 1960s was
" From Ghoulies and Gheesties and all wicked beasties and things that go bump in the night Good Lord deliver us."
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 21, 2022 17:32:17 GMT
I learned a new word in French yesterday, which does not happen often after all these years: baïnes
It does not resemble the English equivalent at all: riptides
Probably if I lived on the coast, I would have encountered it already.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Aug 21, 2022 18:49:03 GMT
I have known that word for years. It has to be the Atlantic coast. At the moment there are lots of warnings about them on the news, but they exist all year round.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 22, 2022 4:03:46 GMT
With my extremely limited store of French word, at least I knew that the word would have to have something to do with water, but I would never have made the leap to riptides.
More or less on that topic, the two Spanish words that I have to remember to get right are mareo, which is dizziness, motion sickness and marea, which is tide. They seem linked.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 22, 2022 4:45:46 GMT
Baïne is a Gascon word which means a depression (underwater) in a bay, which is what screws up the current and makes it dangerous. Just seeing the word, most French speakers would see something that makes them think of "bath" (bain), but the umlaut turns it into a two-syllable word pronounced completely differently: bah-een. Neither of those syllables sounds like a word.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 22, 2022 6:18:18 GMT
Baïne is a Gascon word which means a depression (underwater) in a bay In English, wouldn't that be an undertow?
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 22, 2022 6:56:53 GMT
Undertow and riptide are synonyms.
|
|
|
Post by casimira on Aug 22, 2022 14:39:59 GMT
Having grown up in a seaside town many of these words are very familiar.
There are also some regional words no one outside that world would understand. Their own private dialect passed on from generation to generation.
Writer Peter Matthiessen published a fabulous book Men's Lives. A thorough and up close and personal account of this particular smalltime group of men.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 22, 2022 17:42:49 GMT
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 22, 2022 17:55:22 GMT
Thesauraus.com disagrees.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Aug 22, 2022 19:24:52 GMT
During the long hot summer of 1976 when I worked as a lifeguard in Cornwall I experienced both on a number of occasions. Whether they are synonyms of the same thing or not, as they can be thought of as similar, is neither here nor there as they exhibit somewhat different characteristics. An undertow drags you under but will usually release you reasonably quickly when you reach the next wave (or one after). There's very little you can do about it but not panic and hold your breath. Kick off the bottom if the water is shallow enough or you are deep enough when you feel to undertow slacken. A riptide is not inclined to drag you under but will not release you for some time and distance.....amongst other differences. You can get out of them but again not to panic is the thing and you can eventually swim out of them.
|
|
|
Post by questa on Aug 23, 2022 0:50:49 GMT
In Oz kids learn early about rips. as we call them. Various rips are given names, like "Backpacker's" which forms up near a vicious wall of rocks at Bondi Beach. Each morning the lifeguards paddle around the waters with dye pots marking out the safest areas to swim or body-board. Then they mark this with 2 red and yellow flags in the sand, and woe betide anyone swimming outside the flags.
Only Bondi has lifeguards, all the other hundreds of beaches have life savers The latter are volunteers who give their time to pull stupid, disobedient swimmers out of the rips. If you are caught in a rip 1) Do not panic. Raise an arm 2)Don't swim against it, float or swim across the flow. Most of the drownings are people newly arrived in Oz and really need to learn.
|
|
|
Post by questa on Aug 23, 2022 1:04:42 GMT
P S ...I posted this before I read the link from bixa. Says it so much better than I did!
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 23, 2022 3:50:14 GMT
If you are caught in a rip 1) Do not panic. Raise an arm Is raising the arm a way to signal you need help, or does it do something to position the body to somehow make it more likely to stay afloat in the rip?
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 23, 2022 5:12:01 GMT
I think raising an arm is the accepted international distress signal since doing such a think does not help a person swim in any way.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Aug 23, 2022 5:33:36 GMT
You don't keep the arm raised all the time. You raise and lower it relatively quickly. Serves two purposes. To signal for help plus the eye reacts to movement better than a static arm or both arm raise. Also one raised arm, palm forward, is a natural way to attract someone's attention. The problem is, if you are sufficiently calm and remember to do this, you probably don't need too much help. Those who do need urgent help are usually too busy trying to survive......
|
|
|
Post by questa on Aug 23, 2022 6:38:43 GMT
This demo is generally taught but another says to face the beach etc where your face is easier to see by the guys in the tower.
Do you get a TV series "Bondi Rescue"? It was made for international release and is shown on planes before landing.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Aug 23, 2022 7:00:26 GMT
Most of the accidents on the coast here in southwestern France are also with tourists from other regions. Locals generally know about baïnes. And every summer, there is a lot of advertising about them to warn people. At the moment, they are worse than usual but I don't know why.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 23, 2022 9:43:39 GMT
Because everything is worse than usual!
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 15, 2023 16:52:42 GMT
I actually used the term hoity toity today, so of course I had to look it up.
perhaps an alteration and reduplication of dialectal hoyting "acting the hoyden, romping"
Still not clear but apparently something out of Dutch.
|
|
|
Post by casimira on Feb 16, 2023 14:38:20 GMT
Where's "Whatagain" when we need him? He would likely know from being the authority on all things Dutch. I miss the lad. (btw, he's been MIA for a long time. Has anyone heard news of him and how he is doing?)
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 16, 2023 14:45:44 GMT
"Hoity toity" is one of those terms that has fallen out of use, although people still know the meaning. It reminded me of a much older woman* I knew who used the word "haughty". That's a perfectly good word that also seems to have gone by the wayside.
*a much older person to my mind is someone who is more than a generation older than I, although not necessarily two generations older.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 16, 2023 16:04:04 GMT
But they're all dead.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 17, 2023 1:29:14 GMT
Ha ~ good point! I knew that "older" lady sometime in the late 1980s & early '90s, so there you go.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 2, 2024 14:50:21 GMT
Today I was thinking about how mysterious certain terms from the 20th century must sound to new generations. I already mentioned somewhere that "you sound like a broken record" must make no sense to them, but today I was watching NCIS and the boss (post Gibbs so recent) said "my phone has been ringing off the hook" and that sounds really confusing, too.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Apr 2, 2024 15:07:49 GMT
Since young people are back to buying vinyl records, the comment about sounding like a broken one might mean something to them one of these days.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 2, 2024 15:36:33 GMT
But what does the Spotify crowd think?
|
|