Internet Dictionaries

The Collins Dictionary editorial team recently introduced a new resource for language enthusiasts and I believe it is a worthy addition to the existing collection of internet dictionaries and thesauruses. It is collinsdictionary.com. The site includes English, French, German and Spanish dictionaries, an English thesaurus, and a language translator.

In addition to word definitions, the well-organized dictionary pages include audio pronunciations, synonyms, usage examples, translations with audio pronunciations, related terms, nearby words, related images from Flickr, and usage trend graphs.

Here is one of the related images for the word internet:

I find the translations with audio pronunciations and the usage trend graphs especially interesting.

Reduplicative Toasting

Let's drink to that...twice.

Everyone grows up with particular words and phrases that are not necessarily common to the masses. I have a dear friend, who uses the expression "chin-chin" as a toast whenever we get together to catch up.

I was not familiar with this phrase and never gave it much though. I attributed it to the wonderful lingo this friend has shared with me that I assumed was part of her idiolect; she often uses unusual words and expressions that she credits to her father.

I just recently learned that it is an interjection from the Chinese language.

Origin: 1785–95; < Chinese qǐng-qǐng please-please

So let's have a toast to Mexico for tomorrow's holiday...Chin-chin.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

Stieg Larsson's Linguistic Riddle

I just finished reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest and I was intrigued by the linguistic riddle regarding the word "Amazon" that he presented on page 147 of the hardcover edition. While I realize the book is a work of fiction, there does seem to be some linguistic validity to this "riddle".

The riddle, according to Larsson, is whether the prefix "a-" means "without" in Greek or whether it means the opposite, "with".

In other words, is an Amazon a female warrior with or without breast?

Classic Greek mythology presents the tradition of Amazons destroying the right breast so as not to interfere with the use of the bow; however Larsson's book claims it has also been suggested that "an Amazon was a woman with especially large breasts."

Here is the relevant part of the entry for "Amazon" from an on-line edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (accessed through a private account):

1. pl. A race of female warriors alleged by Herodotus, etc. to exist in Scythia.
1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. XV. xii. (1495) 492 They were callyd Amazones, that is vnderstonde wythout breste.

And the etymology:

[a. L. Amazon, a. Gr. ,*****; explained by the Greeks from * priv. + ***** a breast (in connexion with the fable that they destroyed the right breast so as not to interfere with the use of the bow), but prob. pop. etym. of an unknown foreign word.] (asterisks indicate unavailable font)

However, considering that there is no record of Amazons being without a right breast in works of art and all of the available images of Amazon warriors on a Google image search show women with both breasts, I have to believe that one of the other proposed etymologies for the word is more accurate.

According to Wikipedia, there is an alternate Greek derivation from *ṇ-mṇ-gw-jon-es, meaning "manless, without husbands" or it could be derived from the Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan-, meaning "warriors".

Laverne and Shirley

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Schlemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated.
We're gonna do it!

Remember the theme song? I always thought that schlemeel and schlemazel were made-up, nonsense words used for their phonetic oomph. The words did add a cool sound to the chorus.

In actuality, schlemeel and schlemazel (or schlemiel and schlimazel) are both words with Yiddish origins. They are synonymous nouns defined as an unlucky person.

Padiddle

As a child, I thought everyone knew what a padiddle was. It wasn't until college, when I came into contact with many people from areas other than the town I grew up in, that I realized the word is not so common. The word paddidle is defined as a car with only one working headlight. To us, it was simply an observation ("There goes a padiddle") when we were outside playing in the evening and saw a one drive by. I have since learned that the word is also used for the name of a travel game and points are scored dependant upon the type of vehicle spotted. A quick internet search will bring up numerous sites about the word padiddle and its supposed first recorded use in an "Archie" comic in 1948.

Interestingly, my neighborhood dialectical group also had a word for a car with only one working taillight - a padaddle. This word seems to be even less known and there is still not a whole lot of information available on it.

Update: Here is the definition and etymology of padiddle from the Oxford English Dictionary

padiddle, int. and n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /pəˈdɪdl/ , U.S. /pəˈdɪd(ə)l/
Forms: 19– bediddle, 19– padiddle, 19– pediddle, 19– perdiddle, 19– perdiddo, 19– pididdle. Also with capital initial.
Etymology: Origin unknown.
Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. s.v. also records the forms padoodle , padungle , in the same sense. By some the game is extended to cover cars with only one working rear light, on sight of which the word pedunk is shouted.

U.S. colloq.
A. int.

An exclamation shouted in a game by the first of a group of people who spots a motor vehicle with only one working headlight, this person being entitled variously to kiss or hit the others.

1948 B. Montana Archie (comic strip) in Nevada State Jrnl. 23 May (Comics section) 7 Let's play ‘padiddle’.‥ When a car goes by with one headlight if I say padiddle you have to give me a kiss!
1959 in Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (2002) IV. 79/1 If a fellow sees a car coming with only one light and says ‘padiddle’, he may kiss his girl. If she sees it first and says ‘padiddle’, she may slap the boy.
1991 Washington Post (Electronic ed.) 21 Apr. w8 Years ago in some parts of the country when you were out just driving around of an evening and you saw a car approaching with one of its headlights out, you were supposed to say ‘Padiddle’ and you got to kiss your date.

B. n.

The motor vehicle itself; (also) the game.

1948 [see sense A.].
2003 K. W. Duisberg Good Patient 290 It's just one of those one-eyed cars. What was it she used to call them when we were little, my mother?‥ Padiddle Pediddle. Are they good luck? Do you get a kiss or just a punch?
(Hide quotations)

padiddle, int. and n.
Third edition, March 2005; online version September 2011. ; accessed 31 October 2011.

A Collection of Uncommon Words

If anyone out there has heard an unfamiliar and interesting word they would like to find out more about - please post it here and I will be happy to find out as much info as I can about the word.

For example: who out there knows what a padiddle is? If you have never heard this word before and are curious, please check back tomorrow and I will fill you in.

Also, if you have a fun word that is common to you, but perhaps not to many others, please post that word here with your definition.