Comments by wytukaze

  • For completeness' sake, the Irish and Scottish Gaelic (the closest languages to Manx) cognates are both capall (though the ScG has undergone a bit of sense narrowing, so it just refers to colts now - the normal word being each, which is also valid in Irish). The Welsh, ceffyl as qroqqa mentions, is also cognate, obviously, but I'm not aware of a cognate in the other two Brythonic languages, Breton and Cornish; the usual words are marc'h and margh respectively (and Welsh has march). If anyone knows of cognates, I'd be interested.

    As for "gaffran", yarb, I don't know it and neither does my Welsh dictionary. The plural of gafr is geifr.

    April 23, 2009

  • See whichbe's list Mnemosyne.

    March 19, 2009

  • This has a pretty Entish feel to it, soundwise.

    March 19, 2009

  • It is dull, yeah. Figure out a cool use and then use it as often as possible. Can't be hard to get more cites than Algonquian.

    March 19, 2009

  • “The dictionary proper incorporated often very substantial notes about words on whose pronunciations opinions were divided, frequently quoting a dozen or so other “orthoepists�? (an awkward, now fortunately largely discarded, word offered as pronounced /`ɔ�?θəʊepɪsts/ etc by the dictionaries) in doing so.�?

    Jack Windsor Lewis, in the blog entry “John Walker�? (2009-4-18).

    March 19, 2009

  • It's a character, originally formed as a Greek ligature, (formerly?) used for (different) vowel sounds in a couple of languages. More information, as always, at the Wikipedia link.

    March 19, 2009

  • Yeah, wrong -en morpheme.

    March 19, 2009

  • Ah, enhearten I wouldn't've accepted as a word, but the other three (especially foreshorten) are obvious in relative terms, yeah.

    March 19, 2009

  • hau5

    March 19, 2009

  • enliven, awaken, quieten? That's all I can think of, though—certainly nothing with 3 syllables or more.

    March 19, 2009

  • Coined on the model of placebo from the Latin nocēre, "to hurt", (related to, for example, noxious and obnoxious).

    “Cannon’s analysis of ‘Voodoo Death’ allows us to think the affect of bioterrorism in terms of what we could call ‘nocebos’, the dark twin of a ‘placebo’ … the fear which issues from the negative statement, or hex, attains a reality more powerful than the actual threat. In contemporary medicine, there is much made of the increased likelihood of succumbing to illness if verbal suggestions of susceptibility are emphasized…�?

    Luciana Parisi & Steve Goodman, The Affect of Nanoterror

    March 19, 2009

  • As in StumbleUpon. Also see: socialbookmarkoblogosphere.

    I can't help feeling it's a prettier word than all that.

    March 18, 2009

  • See esoterrorist.

    March 18, 2009

  • “Drexciya are esoterrorists. "Mommy, what's an esoterrorist?" Something, or someone who terrorises through esoteric myth systems. Infiltrating the world, the esoterrorist plants logic bombs and then vanishes, detonating conceptual explosions, multiplying perceptual holes through which the entire universe drains out.�?

    Kodwo Eshun, “Fear of a Wet Planet�?, The Wire #167 (Jan ‘98)

    March 18, 2009

  • To be distinguished from thirl.

    January 12, 2009

  • And thus thrilling and boring are (unmetaphorically) synonymous.

    Also the root of the second component of nostril.

    January 12, 2009

  • A butterfly.

    December 7, 2008

  • also written as nybble

    November 20, 2008

  • Oh wow.

    November 20, 2008

  • “A lowercase Roman numeral�?; see citation at Double-Tongued and discussion at The Volokh Conspiracy.

    November 20, 2008

  • Yeah, this style—I suppose little more than a complicated wordgame–is commonly called Ander-Saxon after Poul Anderson, or just Anglish, hence the name of my list. Anderson's article, incidentally, is not perfect: he uses ordinary, a Latinate word, and there are frequent occurrences of around and round, of Old French origin (despite appearing in almost every Germanic language). Most egregiously, however, stuff also comes to us via Old French. However, the element names ending in -stuff are not the result of a lack of imagination, as bilby assumes, but are a direct analogue of (and in some cases, calque) the original German names for elements, such as Wasserstoff for hydrogen, and which are still widely used.

    November 20, 2008

  • As in B-Rock “The Islamic Shock�? Hussein Superallah Obama.

    November 14, 2008

  • November 14, 2008

  • One who wears a kilt. Also kiltman.

    November 14, 2008

  • Similar to frindley, I'd like to add my Soup to my "also on" list. As I may still be a voice of one at the moment, maybe it'd be good to have an "other" option which would prompt you to add the URL manually?

    November 14, 2008

  • I left a comment regarding monovocalics at Arawakan.

    November 14, 2008

  • There's also Arawak (very common), and I see sporadic instances of pan-Arawak or pan-Arawakan. I must say, panarawakan certainly has a ring to it.

    November 14, 2008

  • “to become dimsighted�?, related to dase (that is, daze)

    November 14, 2008

  • The modern Georgian alphabet.

    November 14, 2008

  • A Georgian lettering style used for titling and such like, where characters (all equivalent to Latin miniscule as the modern Georgian alphabet (mkhedruli) does not have cases) are stretched to fill the height of the ascent (from the baseline). Has had occasional usage with the Latin alphabet, mainly for effect.

    November 14, 2008

  • A lettering style whereby a miniscule is enlarged to (or presented at) the size of a majuscule in a text. Also attributive (“a minsk letter�?) or as an adjective.

    November 14, 2008

  • A font, letter, character, etc., is scapse if it is in smallcaps. Also used as a noun.

    November 14, 2008

  • Twelve handles? What on earth...

    November 14, 2008

  • Perhaps openmouthed, gaping? In which case implying that the person is a mouthbreather.

    November 14, 2008

  • Meaning, and cognate with, “or�?.

    November 14, 2008

  • "people", from Old English þēod, akin to Icelandic þjóð.

    November 14, 2008

  • Actually, this is “or United States of North America�?; eða means "or". The US is often just called bandaríkin, which means "the united states".

    November 14, 2008

  • I really like that. Thanks, frindley.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at worldken.

    November 14, 2008

  • See uncleft and citation at worldken.

    November 14, 2008

  • See uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • “For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.�?

    — Poul Anderson, Uncleftish Beholding, in Analog Science Fact / Science Fiction Magazine, 1989

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation (with meaning “solid�?) at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation (with meaning “crystal�?) at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • Citation at uncleft.

    November 14, 2008

  • “The firststuffs have their being as motes called unclefts. These are mighty small: one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two noughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called bulkbits. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such as iron, cling together in chills when in the fast standing; and there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike unclefts link in a bulkbit, they make bindings. Thus, water is a binding of two waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together with coalstuff and chokestuff.�?

    — Poul Anderson, Uncleftish Beholding, in Analog Science Fact / Science Fiction Magazine, 1989

    November 14, 2008

  • A Welsh adjective that can mean any of blue, green, grey, or silver (though primarily blue nowadays). It's a relict of a set of Indo-European words in various languages that referred to the colour of the sea.

    November 14, 2008

  • “The ancient Celts carefully distinguished the poet, who was originally a priest and judge as well and whose person was sacrosanct, from the mere gleeman.�?

    — Robert Graves, The White Goddess, 1948

    November 14, 2008

  • In the "certainly" sense, it's a relative of German sicher and, distantly, sure and secure. It was resurrected in the Early Modern English period (outside of dialectal usage) as part of the reaction against inkhorn terms.

    November 14, 2008

  • As in agenbite.

    November 14, 2008

  • Oh, and another for the road:

    Mount Etna, otherwise known as Mount Andand (Latin et, Tok Pisin na)

    November 14, 2008

  • It is a wonderful word.

    November 13, 2008

  • Yup, see woodwose.

    November 13, 2008

  • I can't decide whether I like nipplefruit or tittyfruit best.

    November 13, 2008

  • I think this should instead be dasyurine.

    November 13, 2008

  • This uses the (original) meaning of doom that means, essentially, "a deeming", incidentally.

    November 13, 2008

  • I had some time to make up some of these ouija words (ouijaics? ouijonyms?*) earlier:

    leo (French le, Galician/Portuguese o)

    eris (Danish/Faroese/Icelandic/Norwegian er, Afrikaans/Dutch/English/Frisian is)

    eris (German er, Latin is, “he�?)

    airer (Scottish Gaelic air, Manx er, “on�?)

    manner (German/Faroese/Icelandic/Norwegian/Old English/Old Norse mann, Turkish er)—this one only works in the indefinite accusative.

    This is quite a fun distraction; thanks, sionnach.

    *Or maybe nomonyms or namonyms to fill the self-referentiality quota? If we take onym as the second form, we have French nom, and if we take nym, we have Esperanto/Ido nomo, or Old High German namo, all meaning "name".

    November 13, 2008

  • See sólskríkja.

    November 13, 2008

  • Would appear to mean sunshrike, literally (and it has the same form in modern Icelandic).

    November 13, 2008

  • In the interests of Taking Things Too Seriously, I had an Icelandic friend put it into reasonably proper Icelandic grammar for me (I tried, but failed quite quickly):

    sröggin drögg blögg á stöggina

    I hasten to add this still makes no sense in Icelandic.

    November 13, 2008

  • A monocle; also, the face that holds it, or the person that wears it.

    “He turned his hirsute oq in my direction. “What�?, he demanded, “did you say?!�?�?

    November 13, 2008

  • See quilp.

    November 13, 2008

  • "Geraldine comports herself in a most unbunting-like manner!"

    Fantastic.

    November 13, 2008

  • Sounds like the name of a wintertime sex offender…

    November 13, 2008

  • Festive, or metal? I'm quite fond of the phenomenon that is the heavy metal umlaut. Especially when Germans pronounce the bandnames that have them.

    Röck and röll! Bëër! Sëx! Drügs! Dreämy düskywing!

    November 13, 2008

  • Also listed at thorn-bush.

    November 13, 2008

  • I never knew this could refer to a bow, especially not one of shame.

    November 13, 2008

  • Citation at sedge.

    November 13, 2008

  • Citation at sedge.

    November 13, 2008

  • Citation at sedge.

    November 13, 2008

  • Citation at sedge.

    November 13, 2008

  • Citation as verb at sedge.

    November 13, 2008

  • Citation as adjective at sedge.

    November 13, 2008

  • Also a (technically incorrect) term of venery for bitterns and cranes; the correct term would be ‘a siege of…’.

    “Here she dwelt with a retinue of aged servants, fantastic women and men half imbecile, who salaamed before her with eastern humility and yet addressed her in such terms as gossips use. Had she given them life they could not have obeyed with more reverence. Quaint things the women wrought for her—pomanders and cushions of thistledown; and the men were never happier than when they could tell her of the first thrush’s egg in the thorn-bush or the sedge of bitterns that haunted the marsh. She was their goddess and their daughter.�?

    — R. Murray Gilchrist, A Night on the Moor and Other Tales of Dread

    November 13, 2008

  • Then let's commandeer it for English! I know I will, and it certainly looks like a plausible English word (at least at first glance).

    November 13, 2008

  • It may bear mentioning that y in Finnish is a vowel, equivalent to German ü, French u. This word is like whalesong.

    November 13, 2008

  • Represents an older form of sneeze, descending from Old English fnēosan “to sneeze�?. Depending on who you ask, the change from f to s occurred either through a misreading or misunderstanding, or is a “strengthened�? form of Middle English nese, itself descended from ME fnese (as with German niesen, Swedish nysa).

    November 13, 2008

  • A smallish rajiform that travels through the salt-laden mists that roll off the sea onto land. In numbers, they present a nuisance to cliffside ramblers and climbers.

    November 13, 2008

  • Actually, they're likely to be split over three variants—the one with the umlaut intact (sprachgefühl), the one without (sprachgefuhl), and the entumlautet (that is to say, de-umlauted) version done ‘correctly’: sprachgefuehl. Quite an issue, then.

    November 13, 2008