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I'm not sure if this topic will gain posts or traction, but in case...

Like many people who read a lot, I just LOVE words... unusual words, words which can't be translated etc. So this is a space, if anyone wants to use it, for people to post words that occur during their daily lives or reading.

I'd prefer it if that is OK that people didn't post long lists - just something that crops up in a book, on film, or in daily life.

Today's word, from me, is "skedaddle"...

My daughter and her partner were visiting, as they do on most Wednesdays. One of their dogs, the young and lively Gwymon (= seaweed in Welsh and Breton) wandered into the downstairs toilet, just as I was going in.

When he noticed I was right behind him, he "skedaddled" in the full sense of the word, scrabbling on the floor to get out and avoid being trapped (not that I was going to 'trap' him, but he didn't know that)... and as I told my wife, "Gwymon just skedaddled!" (She loves words as much as me, and though her English is excellent she is French so has missed out on some more unusual terms.)

So, what does it mean? If you are unfamiliar with the word, this is the definition:



skedaddled; skedaddling ski-ˈdad-liŋ -ˈda-dᵊl-iŋ ; skedaddles
intransitive verb

: to leave immediately : RUN AWAY, SCRAM
I've got to skedaddle or I'll be late.
Whenever there was work to be done, he skedaddled.
�� of the five hundred and sixteen thousand immigrants who had come to Quebec since 1969 some three hundred and twelve thousand took a good look around and skedaddled.
—Mordecai Richler
�� Vietnam, a country that has been virtually closed to foreigners since the last American helicopter skedaddled from the embassy rooftop in 1975.
—Stephen O'Shea

especially : to flee in a panic
Little gray lizards skedaddle from our path.
—Wells Tower
Though penguins can't outrun a lion, they can skedaddle on land if they really need to.
—Diane Ackerman
�� they took their money and skedaddled as the housing market collapsed.
—Bill Saporito

I had in mind in particular: "to flee in a panic"

Are dialect words allowed? Last time I was in Scotland an elderly relative said "Drookit" meaning soaked to the skin in the rain. Since then I have added it to my vocabulary :��-��)

Greenfairy wrote: "Are dialect words allowed? Last time I was in Scotland an elderly relative said "Drookit" meaning soaked to the skin in the rain. Since then I have added it to my vocabulary :��-��)"

Oh, absolutely - in any case, I'm not looking to be any sort of policeman on this.

The only criteria are that the word should be interesting, unusual and have occurred recently in some context, otherwise we run the risks of long lists which tend to be boring!

Here’s one for you scarlet.
MrC had some skin cancer removed from the top of his head last Thursday and it was my job to remove the plasters on Monday.
I am not so good at being a nurse and the thought of doing this gave me something of a sleepless night on Sunday, my stomach queasy thinking about it.
I had the collywobbles as armed with lotion and cotton wool I tried not to hurt, remove them as gently as I could and smother the wounds with vaseline.

This week @LLJones mentioned that she has an Edward Gorey Tarot deck. I'd never heard of this, and so did a search on it.

Not really a Tarot deck in the formal sense (78 cards), it's a set of 20 cards showing typically strange and sinister deadpan Gorey images drawn in his immediately recognizable style.

The reason I mention it here is that it's titled "The Fantod Pack", fantod being defined at dictionary.com as "a state of extreme nervousness or restlessness; the willies; the fidgets".

Greenfairy wrote: "Are dialect words allowed? Last time I was in Scotland an elderly relative said "Drookit" meaning soaked to the skin in the rain. Since then I have added it to my vocabulary :��-��)"

Bit like:

dreich
/�����ː��/
adjectiveSCOTTISH
(especially of weather) dreary; bleak.
"a cold, dreich early April day"

In the book that I am reading, Dying in the Wool by Frances Brphy, i came across a reference to

an enamel guzzunder

I could guess that it was a chamber pot but had not heard it calledthat before. I looked up the definition to read that it was a large pot with a tight fitting lid for keeping under bed.
These pots were kept to save a trek to the outside toilet in the night.
MrC knew the word but I didn’t but we both remembered pots from our childhood particularly when evacuated during WW2.

CCCubbon wrote: "Here’s one for you scarlet.
MrC had some skin cancer removed from the top of his head last Thursday and it was my job to remove the plasters on Monday... I had the collywobbles..."

Haha! Great word. Fortunately, when I had a huge tumour removed from my nose (and had a drain attached to my forehead), my wife - who had to carry out similar duties for a few weeks - did so without too much squeamishness.

Thanks to all for the interesting words - 'fantod' and 'guzzunder' were new to me.

In my current book Deadline in Athens I came across the term 'fustanella' - new to me as I don't know Greece well. This turns out to be the traditional short skirt-like garment worn by men in Greece and the Balkans:

Don't think I'll find occasion to use that one often, though!

Otherwise, there was an amusing error - a typo or an 'autocorrect' which introduced and error - so an 'autoerror' maybe - as there was a reference to a 'damp squid'.

Now, squids are to be found in the sea, so you'd expect them to be damp.

What was intended was the phrase 'damp squib': a squib is a small firework or 'banger'; if damp, they don't go off. The metaphor refers to an announcement (or similar) intended to cause a sensation, but which fails to do so.

Finally, from my other book The Dark Remains comes another term from Scotland - a 'howff', meaning a favourite meeting place or haunt, often a pub.

(The first word I mentioned was 'skedaddle' which - at the time - I thought had come to me spontaneously. Later yesterday, I came across the word in 'Deadline in Athens' and was amazed by the coincidence... then I thought - what if the author used the word earlier in the book and I'd noted it subconsciously? Possible - the human brain is a weird and wonderful thing. Since it's a paperback, I have no way of searching as I could have done with an ebook, so that must remain as speculation.)

In the book that I am reading I keep coming across the wordbuffet not the help yourself meal but something to sit on.
I guessed it was some kind of stool which was correct when I looked it up. I did not find it in the general dictionaries but it was in the Yorkshire historical for a low stool. The buffet seemed to be the ordinary seat in cottages which would make sense in limited space. The word buffet dates back in records to the fifteenth century.
I think it must be something like a square pouffe.

CCCubbon wrote: "I think it must be something like a square pouffe."

I wonder if it is linked to 'tuffet', upon which Little Miss Muffet sat?

My word of the day is 'streetwalker', which appeared in the translation of Zone Defence by Petros Markaris.
It made me think of two things: AFAIK, there is no exact equivalent in UK English; the word is of US origin, and I've never seen it used 'over here'. If anyone can think of a UK version, please remind/inform me!

It also reminded me of the French term, which pleased my daughters so much that they repeated it in fits of giggles when they heard it on TV: salope de trottoir, said with great relish. Translating to English, you get "pavement whore", which doesn't have the same ring to it at all.

Which, of course, led me to reflect on the fact that the UK 'pavement' is called a 'sidewalk' in the US... and so it goes.

I also came across a word quiz (not easy - I got 2/7) on the BBC Bitesize pages - aimed at older schoolkids, I guess, but it's never too early to develop an interest in words and etymology, IMHO. The page contains links to several others about how meanings change over time etc.

scarletnoir wrote: "My word of the day is 'streetwalker', which appeared in the translation of Zone Defence by Petros Markaris."

The common term I've heard used in conversation (at least it was a number of years ago) is "hooker", which I assume is also an Americanism, being an Civil War-era eponym derived from the name of a Union general.

I'm always amused when I encounter in English texts the euphemism fille de joie. Wedekind employs a similar term in German in his ironic line "Gibt es etwas Traurigeres auf der Welt als ein Freudenmädchen!" (Is there anything in the world sadder than a fille de joie!)

scarletnoir wrote: "Which, of course, led me to reflect on the fact that the UK 'pavement' is called a 'sidewalk' in the US... and so it goes."

This reminded me of a slang term from the 1920s I've encountered in some older books: young men prowling the streets looking to pick up women were referred to as "sidewalk sheiks" after the seductive figure played by Rudolf Valentino in The Sheik.

Bill wrote: "young men prowling the streets looking to pick up women were referred to as "sidewalk sheiks".."

Sort of an outdoor version of the 'lounge lizard', then?

"Hooker" is definitely a US term, though I assume anyone in the UK would understand it.

"Fille de joie" sounds quite nice, really - maybe what in UK (and US?) slang could be termed a "good-time girl". Certainly, the terms are far less severe than "salope de trottoir", which to my mind should definitely have a double 'p', but apparently it doesn't.

Another amusing and (I assume) archaic phrase is: "She's no better than she should be"; I assume that would cause confusion for non-native speakers, or indeed younger people.

scarletnoir wrote: "My word of the day is 'streetwalker'...

the French term ... salope de trottoir..."

I've never heard that before �� and definitely don't recommend googling it!

I thought about posting this in “Music��, but decided it would be more appropriate here. @Berkley mentioned the group The Yardbords, and I was reminded of the one time I’d heard the word used not in reference to the band of that name.

Late one afternoon I stopped at a food truck named “Tex’s Bar-B-Q�� and ordered the whiteboard-advertised special, a barbequed whole chicken. Upon being handed my order I was informed, presumably by the eponymous Tex, “That’s the last of them yardbirds.��

Bill wrote: "Yardbords."

I assume that should be 'Yardbirds' as later in your comment!

I remember the group and their songs 'For Your Love' and 'Heart full of Soul' - many members became famous in later line-ups.

Apparently, this is where the name came from:

"Following a couple of gigs in September 1963 as the Blue-Sounds, they changed their name to the Yardbirds. McCarty claims that Relf was the first to use the name; he may have gotten it from Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, where it referred to rail yard hobos.[10] He adds that Topham identified it as a nickname for jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker." (Wikipedia).

I had thought from memory that it was slang for a criminal or gangster, and indeed one of several dictionary definitions is "a convict or prisoner".

scarletnoir wrote: "Bill wrote: "Yardbords."

I assume that should be 'Yardbirds' as later in your comment!

I remember the group and their songs 'For Your Love' and 'Heart full of Soul' - many members became famous i..."

As with almost all popular music from my own time, though I'd heard the band's name many times, I couldn't associate them with any particular songs or identify any of the individual members.

A few weeks ago I read the NYRB review of The Philosophy of Modern Song and could only recall hearing 5 of the many songs mentioned in the article: "Mack the Knife", "Strangers in the Night", "Whiffenpoof Song", "On the Road Again", and "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves". With the last two, I have only approximate recall of the melody. (From the citations I was able to find online, the title of the last song never includes the Oxford comma, which I was inclined to insert.)

Wikipedia gives one definition of "yardbird" as "A colloquialism for the domestic chicken in the American Deep South." I assumed as much from the context of Tex's comment, though I didn't have a copy of Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume V: Sl-Z handy (at any rate, I think Volume 5, which covers Y, would not have been published at that time.)

Bill wrote: "A few weeks ago I read the NYRB review of The Philosophy of Modern Song and could only recall hearing 5 of the many songs mentioned in the article: "Mack the Knife", "Strangers in the Night", "Whiffenpoof Song", "On the Road Again", and "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves".

I have no problem with the first two which I have heard hundreds of times, or "On the Road Again", which I'm pretty sure features in the movie "Woodstock".

I've never heard of the other two, though that doesn't mean I don't know the tunes - I always pay far more attention to the melody than the lyric. I must say that "Whiffenproof Song" seems an incredibly improbable title: does it refer to some industrial process of "whiffenproofing", which might possibly mean "to ensure using a coating that unpleasant odours can not penetrate..."?

My word of the day, which appeared in Masaryk Station by David Downing, is "ginnel".

Never seen this one before - it is apparently a Northern English term: a narrow passage between buildings; an alley. Looking for this threw up an oddly precise distinction between 'ginnel' and 'snicket' (think I'd heard that one, but not sure).

According to Collins Dictionary, the word snicket is defined as "a passageway between walls or fences" and ginnel is "a narrow passageway between or through buildings"

Finally, I'd like to introduce the French term for such a passageway (Madame reminded me of this one!): une coupe-gorge, literally a "throat-cut""

Lieu écarté, endroit suspect où l'on court le risque d'être assassiné : Cette ruelle est un coupe-gorge.

So, steer well clear!

scarletnoir wrote: "Bill wrote: "A few weeks ago I read the NYRB review of The Philosophy of Modern Song and could only recall hearing 5 of the many songs mentioned in the article: "Mack the Knife", "Strangers in the ..."

The Whiffenpoofs were a US college social organization. The lyrics are borrowed from Kipling's Gentlemen Rankers: "Gentlemen rankers off on a spree/ Doomed from here to eternity/ Lord have pity on such as we/ Bah Bah Bah."

The learned Wikipedia offers more Whiffenpoof-related info:

The Yale Whiffenpoofs is a collegiate a cappella singing group. Established at Yale University in 1909, it is the oldest such group in the United States. The line-up is completely replaced each year: the group is always composed of rising seniors, who often take a year leave of absence from the university to tour the United States and internationally. Cole Porter was a member of the group.

I came across the word paintresses in a book referring to women who paint the pictures and patterns on cups and saucers. Not I suppose unusual or hard to guess what was meant but I don’t remember coming across it before.
Words ending in ‘ess�� to denote femininity are going out of use - suppose it’s a gender equality thing but, personally , I don’t object to the use, more a source of pride.

Robert wrote: "The learned Wikipedia offers more Whiffenpoof-related info:

The Yale Whiffenpoofs is a collegiate a cappella singing group. Established at Yale University in 1909, it is the oldest such group in t..."

Thanks, Robert - their fame has not reached this side of the Atlantic. I also note that I misread the spelling, reading it as "Whiffenproofs". I must say that calling someone a "whiffenpoof" over 'ere might sound very like a gay slur.

(I like Cole Porter's songs a lot, BTW. There is an unforgettable performance of 'You're the Top' in the light-hearted Agatha Christie film 'Evil Under the Sun', sung as a bitch-off between Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith. Brilliant.)

CCCubbon wrote: "Words ending in ‘ess�� to denote femininity are going out of use - suppose it’s a gender equality thing but, personally , I don’t object to the use, more a source of pride."

I have been puzzled by the recent tendency to dispense with "actress", as if the word was in some way demeaning... I don't get it.
If we dispense with 'actress', then logically awards ceremonies will only need one award: 'Best Actor' - not two. (Such a move would make ceremonies mercifully shorter - not that I watch them anyway.)

Recently there was such an award (I have forgotten what it was for) where the short list contained only men - and there was a big fuss! Now, either we have awards for each gender - and maybe a third 'all-comers' category - or just one, in which case do people think there should be quotas? If so, we would be re-introducing gender by the back door - an absurd situation.

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Words ending in ‘ess�� to denote femininity are going out of use - suppose it’s a gender equality thing but, personally , I don’t object to the use, more a source of pride."

I have..."

The Guardian dropped "actress" a couple of years ago, I know not why.

scarletnoir wrote: "I'm not sure if this topic will gain posts or traction, but in case...

Like many people who read a lot, I just LOVE words... unusual words, words which can't be translated etc. So this is a space,..."

Dad had an Irish fascination with words used well.
Years ago, my father and I watched a performance of Hamlet. The director had cut out any reference to Fortinbras until he appeared at the end.
Dad asked "Who was that?" When we got home, I dug out my college text and pointed to omitted passages. "Here." "Here."
Dad read each one with interest. Then he called to my mother: "Hey, Mary Anne, listen to this!" He read out the lines where Fortinbras "hath sharked up a list of lawless resolutes."
Then he repeated it, picturing this crowd of thugs.

Excellent description - you can picture it indeed!

CCCubbon wrote: "Words ending in ‘ess�� to denote femininity are going out of use - suppose it’s a gender equality thing but, personally , I don’t object to the use, more a source of pride."

It's even less common to see the -trix ending to designate a female performing a role usually ending in -tor, such as "editrix" or "executrix".

Bill wrote: "It's even less common to see the -trix ending to designate a female performing a role usually ending in -tor, such as "editrix" or "executrix"

I think that's more understandable since Latin is no longer taught regularly in much of the English-speaking world, so the -trix ending is unfamiliar in everyday language. But I'm another person who doesn't find the word "actress" in any way disparaging.

Today the word haversack was brought to mind. Reading, in the Nicolas Le Floch series, La pyramide de glace by Jean-François Parot (set in 1784), I came across the word havresac, from which our word originates.

Bill wrote: "It's even less common to see the -trix ending to designate a female performing a role usually ending in -tor, such as "editrix" or "executrix".

No doubt coincidental to its scarcity, but one of the better known words with this ending is the severe "dominatrix"!

scarletnoir wrote: "No doubt coincidental to its scarcity, but one of the better known words with this ending is the severe "dominatrix"!"

That particular word doesn't seem endangered at the moment; perhaps - combining your observation with @Berkley's theory - it's because a disproportionate number of Latinists are also masochists.

Three for you this evening all once used to try to bring about a miscarriage. I had to look them up and found they may still be bought.
Penny royal
Slippery elm
Cohosh

Bill wrote: "...it's because a disproportionate number of Latinists are also masochists."

Could be - that comment reminds me of the schoolboy poem:

Latin is a language
As dead as dead could be.
First it killed the Romans
And now it's killing me!

I wonder if this is (or was) recited on the other side of the Atlantic?

I've just read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, about code breaking at Bletchley Park during WWII.
I knew people here had read it so when I finished it, looked up what they'd said about it. CCCubbon felt that expressions were used that were not current at the time.
I'd been surprised when one of the characters used the word "loo" for lavatory, so looked up when its use dated from. The first verified use is in 1940, in one of Nancy Mitford's books. I thought it was a much more recent usage.

But I don’t think loo was in common use during my childhood or as a young woman in the 50s - always the lavatory or the ladies.

CCCubbon wrote: "But I don’t think loo was in common use during my childhood or as a young woman in the 50s - always the lavatory or the ladies."

I don't remember hearing it as a child either.

The traditional Welsh term for 'toilet' is 'ty bach', meaning 'little house'... need I say more?

CCCubbon wrote: "But I don’t think loo was in common use during my childhood or as a young woman in the 50s - always the lavatory or the ladies."

My wife suggested it came from the French 'l'eau', so I thought I'd look it up - and came across a hilarious article by the OUP/ University of Minnesota etymologist Anatoly Lieberman. Here it is:

Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "My word of the day is 'streetwalker'...

the French term ... salope de trottoir..."

I've never heard that before �� and definitely don't recommend googling it!"

(I've only just discovered this thread and love it)

I googled "Freudenmädchen" (fille de joie).

The first two entries:

Buy Freudenmädchen / amazon.de

Freudenmädchen on eBay - buy Freudenmädchen on e-Bay

Neither amazon.de nor eBay seem to have Prostituierte or Huren on offer....

(sorry for the OT comment)

This is not about gendering although it is about an exotic bloom of gendering language.

Recently I read an article about widowed people.

A German widow is a "Witwe" (plural: "Witwen"), a German widower is a "Witwer"(plural "Witwer")

In the article German widows were made into "Witwerinnen" (widoweresses).


Is there a word for a male midwife in English? (there isn't one in German yet, afaik)

Georg wrote: "Neither amazon.de nor eBay seem to have Prostituierte or Huren on offer...."

Haha! I like it.

By now, I have gathered a lot of online dictionaries and translation devices in a Bookmarks folder; one of these usually provides a suggestion or two when I want to see what the equivalent of some word might be in another language.

The one I use most often for straightforward translation is ReversoContext, which is usually pretty good, though we had a problem with it today, which I'll come back to later.

Freudenmädchen is given as prostitutes, women of easy virtue, ladies of the evening, harlots, girls of pleasure, doxies, ladies of pleasure, women of the town, trollops, joy girls etc...

One example of an error occurs here, too - one sentence has left out the word completely in English, so the highlighted translation for 'Freudenmädchen' (found by counting the words, presumably) is 'sailors'! I think that using the back-translation could get an English speaker into trouble in the wrong bar...

Earlier, by pure coincidence, my daughter started a discussion about German, and we showed her an old book of poetry of my grandfather's which used the old Gothic script. She came across the word 'Oben' and asked what it meant. 'Orbs' was apparently the answer. Then, she asked what 'dort Oben' meant, and it became clear that 'oben' didn't have a capital, so we had 'up there' or 'at the top' instead. That sort of worked!

But... then she asked about 'herbei', and the difference in word order completely confused the poor translation device. Although given correctly at the top, in the examples it could apparently mean:

'in a state of fury'
'end'
'angel'
'undoing'
'cart'

and many other absurd suggestions... these things are clearly 'perfectible', because they are far from perfect ATM!

Georg wrote: "Is there a word for a male midwife in English?"

I don't know if its use is in any way widespread or accepted generally, but the Urban Dictionary suggests 'midhusband', which I suppose makes perfect sense in language terms, at least!



A further check shows it is also listed by Wiktionary:

.

Oh dear... I'm on a roll now... Wiktionary also lists 'accoucheur' and its female equivalent 'accoucheuse' - which sounds French - but isn't.

All French people call a midwife a 'sage femme' (literally, a 'wise woman'). So I don't know where they got that from!

(I'd better stop now.)

Georg wrote: "In the article German widows were made into "Witwerinnen" (widoweresses)."

Oh, I think I missed your point - are you saying that in Germany, language is becoming more gendered, whereas in English we are discouraged from the use of 'actresses', for example - everyone is an 'actor' now, apparently, regardless of their sex, gender or anything else. I know not why.

So - the languages are moving in opposite directions?

scarletnoir wrote: "Earlier, by pure coincidence, my daughter started a discussion about German, and we showed her an old book of poetry of my grandfather's which used the old Gothic script. She came across the word '..."

"herbei" is difficult to translate. It is usually part of a composed verb: "herbeiwünschen, or -sehnen" means to wish for something to happen. Something that is distant, which we want to be/come close(r) to. (not sure whether that makes sense out of context).

My wife discovered a useful Russian word while reading a book review: vranyo.

It's a lie, which everyone, speaker and audience, knows to be a lie, but is treated by all as though it's a true statement. This is an increasingly common practice in US politics, as with "stolen election".

Hm, I just made a very disturbing discovery:

Mark Twain took the piss when he wrote "The Awful German Language". "Mädchen" is a diminuitive (evidenced by the suffix "-chen". Used for all female persons below a certain age (not yet a woman). The article is "das" {Mädchen], neutrum, whereas the article for turnip is "die" {Rübe], femininum.

The German word for maggot is "Made". The diminuitive for "Made" would be "Mädchen".

I better go to bed now, before I am carried away even further...