I’m guessing we could use a thread for talking about things that don’t make us feel bad. Here, have some nifty sayings in other languages:
“See you later, alligator” equivalents in other languages:
5. Aju paraplu (Dutch) = bye umbrella
4. Agur yogur (Basque) = bye yoghurt
3. Čauky mňauky (Czech) = ciao miaow
2. Szervusz vízibusz (Hungarian) = cheerio waterbus
1. Me piro, vampiro (Spanish) = I’m outta here, vampire— Adam Sharp (@AdamCSharp) November 16, 2021
I especially like the Czech one! Feel free to talk about more things you like about other languages–or anything else, except for you-know-what.
Yutsano
Now I have to know what a waterbus is!
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
It’s always good to know these things. I like the Spanish one best. When I lived in Honduras and before I spoke Spanish, I asked how to say a few phrases. One was, “Don’t put toads in my dessert!” and the other one was “Help! Bandits have stolen my pants!” You’d be amazed how often those came in handy.
SiubhanDuinne
I dunno if this is going to work. “See you later, alligator” makes me think of crocodiles, and that makes me think of crocodile tears, and that makes me think of … well, you know.
Urza
I was unaware that there were enough Spanish vampire myths to warrant such a saying.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: The previous thread is still alive and kicking, you can always go back there. :-)
Jeffro
Those sayings are pretty funny to say aloud…I bet I can get Fro Jr to adopt “Me piro, vampiro” with me. =)
Major Major Major Major
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.): ¡Ay, dios mío!
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: Budapest waterbus
H.E.Wolf
@Yutsano:Now I have to know what a waterbus is!
https://www.budapest.com/w/assignables/maxi/riverride_1-47001973963.jpg
H.E.Wolf
@mrmoshpotato:
The two of us are a mighty team!
One might say that together, we make quite a splash.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: Obligatory groan. (of appreciation)
Major Major Major Major
Neat!
oldster
“Szervusz vízibusz” reminds us that Hungary used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
“Servus,” Latin for “slave, servant” used to be a common greeting across Bavarian south Germany and Austria, though it’s getting a bit old-fashioned now. To greet someone with a cheerful, “servus!” is equivalent to saying “at your service!” or “your servant!”
Another version of that was to say, “sclavus!” also from (late) Latin, meaning someone from Sclavonia, i.e. a Slavic person, which was a major source for the slave trade, ie the trade in Slavs.
Given how the sounds changed as Italian emerged out of Latin, the word first lost an initial ‘s’, and then the ‘l’ was softened to an ‘i’ glide (as “flora” changed to “fiori”, “clarus” to “chiaro,” and many others.) Finally, the “-us” ending changed to the simpler “o”.
And that’s how “sclavus!” turned into “ciao!” which also originally meant, “your servant! at your service!”
So, two of these nifty rhyming goodbyes share a similar origin in Latin words for slaves.
mrmoshpotato
@H.E.Wolf: ?
Scout211
My internet has been super slow in the past few days. It was so slow that when I tried to download the updates to Office 365, it told me that it would take FIVE DAYS! Now that’s slow internet.
I called my internet service provider, Ron. He said he would look into it.
I am hoping that the rural broadband money will reach this area. But in the meantime, we have Ron. ?
It’s so bad that it’s kind of funny. Five days?
stinger
All I had to do was read the headline below to know I’d rather talk about languages.
I had a(n American) friend who had once lived next door to a French family with a young boy, who would lean out the window when my friend left home for work and call, “Au ‘voir, ca-ca!” Missing the little boy, my friend got me to repeat it to him whenever we parted, and he’d laugh hysterically. Eventually he admitted to me that “ca-ca” was slang for manure.
Bye-bye, poo-poo!
HeleninEire
I promise this is a good thing. Today is the 47th anniversary of my mother’s death. She was 37 years old at the time. I was 12. Stay with me here… I took a sick day from work. One of the very few sick days I’ve taken in my life. I’m sitting at the bar in a sushi restaurant and just had the best lunch I’ve ever had. Wine too. I’m now 59 years old. Life is good.
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major: Clever girl.
Miss Bianca
@oldster: “What a fascinating modern age we live in!” (J. Aubrey)
trollhattan
@Scout211:
Ron Burgundy or Ron Swanson? Depending on which Ron, the outcome will be very different.
Fair Economist
I agree the Czech one sounds cutest. Even more fun to have a rhyming translation into English.
stinger
@oldster: How interesting!
At what point did the ci-sound in that word become a chi-sound? (“chow”)
trollhattan
@HeleninEire:
Sláinte to you, in your mother’s memory.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I checked it out. Beginning to get repetitive.
HeleninEire
@trollhattan: Thank you.
JoyceH
Today confirms my decision not to pursue a career in public service. I remember the day I got a colonoscopy, and I would not have wanted to come right back afterwards and pardon a couple turkeys.
stinger
@HeleninEire: It can be hard to realize you’re older than your mother was when she died. (Same for men and their fathers.)
I think you honored her appropriately. And she’d be so happy that you’ve had a good life, lived in Ireland, seldom been sick, and know a great lunch when you eat one!
Alison Rose
I will now be saying “I’m outta here, vampire” instead of goodbye on the phone.
(I don’t go anywhere, so I am never actually “outta” anywhere.)
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: That’s awesome. :) I recently learned on Twitter that Great Blue Herons will snag bread chucks that people throw at ducks and use it as bait to catch fish. Very clever birds!
@HeleninEire: Sláinte!
Ladyracterinok
Fingerhut…Finger is German for English finger, Hut is German for English hat. So Fingerhut in English is thimble
Baumwolle…Baum is German for English tree Wolle is German for English wool. So Baumwolle in English is cotton
Scout211
As expected, the CDC advisory group okays boosters for all adults 6 months after a second mRNA vaccination. Next step is the CDC director. Her final approval should be soon, maybe even later today. Good news. ?
Scout211
@Betty Cracker:
We have a resident Great Blue Heron who hangs out on our property eating random rodents and looking very regal.
SiubhanDuinne
@oldster:
That is super-fascinating, and I thank you for that etymological excursion.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: nice!
Major Major Major Major
@Ladyracterinok: my favorite silly german compound is Handschuh, hand+shoe—glove.
delk
Gdzie jest biblioteka? Just in case you are ever in Poland and need to know where the library is located.
sab
@Ladyracterinok: Thanks. I did not know that. Do you think various Fingerhuts had tailor ancestors?
HeleninEire
@stinger: Thank you for seeing everything I was trying to say.
When we were at 38 years my sister said “She’s been dead longer than she was alive.”
Wow.
Origuy
I know very little Czech but shouldn’t the pronunciation be chiouky meowky?
Nutmeg again
@Major Major Major Major: Mine, and possibly my favorite German word, is Gluhbirne.
Gluh=glow birne (Birne)=pear.
Gluhbirne=glowpear, aka lightbulb. love that!
HeleninEire
@Betty Cracker: Thank you.
Brachiator
Words and language. I always liked this bit of WC Fields nonsense about Carl LaFong.
prostratedragon
@JoyceH: If sedation was used, Joe might find himself feeling surprisingly mellow for a work day.
Major Major Major Major
@Origuy: it’s a translation!
HumboldtBlue
In desperate search for a distraction from the news, I was elated to discover that the gem of a film The Wipers Times — which I first encountered and watched five or six years ago on Netflix — is now available on You Tube.
It’s such a brilliant movie, poignant, funny, dark.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
huh, Harris was briefly president to day when Biden was sedated for a medical examine.
Harris was the first female president. Hot damn.
prostratedragon
@HeleninEire: A good way to reflect.
SiubhanDuinne
@prostratedragon:
Time to invoke the Alien and Sedation Acts!
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
It reminds me of someone explaining how unpredictable language is. Someone from Shakespeare’s age would know what hot meant, and they’d know what a dog is, but that wouldn’t let them guess what a hotdog is.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
One version of this goes,
See ya later, alligator.
After while, crocodile.
After supper, motherf**
Lewis Carroll?
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
oatler
I heard that “washing machine” is hilarious to Spanish speakers.
Benw
I actually know a family from the Netherlands. Imma try “bye umbrella “ on then the next time I see them!
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: I watched a BBC nature doc that showed monkeys eating charcoal to in Zanzibar to counteract the effects of eating mango and almond leaves. They showed a pretty funny clip of monkeys stealing pieces of charcoal from street vendors who sell charcoal for fuel.
prostratedragon
@Brachiator: Perhaps a faint memory of this poem is the reason that the phrase “crocodiiil smile” rattles around in my brain.
sab
In my long ago French class my French teacher from France said the proper French word for faucet was “robinette” but the misguided Quebequois word was “chantpleur” or rain song. I don’t know if this is true, but I hope so.
SiubhanDuinne
@HeleninEire:
These anniversaries can be very odd, as can the mathematical/calendrical hoops we jump through to try to make sense of them. A couple of weeks ago was the 46th anniversary of my own mother’s death (she was 58, I was 33). To get granular about it, she was 58 years, 2 months, and 1 day old the day she died. When I hit my own 58/2/1, I was acutely aware that I had matched my mother’s allotted time. It’s always a melancholy, or at least reflective, day for me. Hugs — I know your mom would be thrilled with her smart, funny, accomplished daughter.
Bloix
@Major Major Major Major: Those feet are something else.
stinger
@sab: Love the “misguided” part!
Reading through Louise Penny right now. Her mysteries are set in Quebec, and her renderings of small town Francophone culture are delightful.
HeleninEire
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you!
Roger Moore
@sab:
This is what happens with things that are developed when communications aren’t so good. New ideas are expressed with new language, and that language won’t be the same from place to place unless there’s enough communication to ensure that happens. Or maybe it has to do with the ability of one side to enforce the new language on the other. The classic example is the way that the US and UK use different words for the parts of a car, e.g. windshield/windscreen, hood/bonnet, trunk/boot.
sab
@stinger: She also told us that our textbook glossery that translated “nouriture” as diet was wrong, and that the correct word was “regime.” We were afraid to tell her that English diet has two very different meanings, both correct.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Yup. Also Kipling (from Just-So Stories, “The Elephant’s Child”):
CaseyL
Some Spanish sayings get put through an English play-on-words process.
I’m rather fond of “Hasty Bananas!” and “Vayas Con Carne!”
sab
@Roger Moore: Winston Churchill with the American mother: ” Two peoples separated by a common language.” But, of course, more than two peoples, since there are English speakers speaking it differently all over the world.
eclare
@CaseyL: Wonton tomato!
Roger Moore
@sab:
We got mass media in time to ensure the language doesn’t split too badly. Most of the colonies stuck with British English as their starting point, since the English had the power to enforce it. The Canadians wound up with the oddest mishmash of British and American forms because they had two strong influences. They even can’t make up their mind on spelling; they’ve adopted some, but not all, Americanisms.
sab
@eclare: That sounds dirty. Shame on you.
sab
@Roger Moore: I think their spelling problem is that books are published by continent not country.
My nephew married a lovely anglophone Canadian, and she has certainly fucked up his perfect midwestern accent.
cope
@sab: My favorite true story of English/American language stumbles happened in Ft. William, Scotland in a shop known for woolen items (as are most shops in Ft. William). My American buddy, an enthusiastic cross country skier but first time visitor to GB asked if they sold woolen knickers. Two of the shop girls exchanged looks and worked very hard to stifle their laughter.
sab
@cope: Lol. I hope they didn’t have any, as those sound scratchy and uncomfortable.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Were Kipling alive he would have totally cheered and fundraised for Rittenhouse.
As he did for a more infamous mass murderer, the butcher of Jalianwala Bagh, General Dyer who opened fire on unarmed protestors after blocking the exits.
Official death count according to British authorities was 379, figures from Indian sources put the number close to 2000.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: You want the thread downstairs. Or upstairs.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: My comment was more to do with Kipling who makes an appearance in this feel good thread. Excusing folks like him leads to events that precipitate the threads you mentioned
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I like Kipling’s stories but you are completely right.
I have a hard time dealing with writings of writers I love who had horrible values. I hope I wouldn’t love them if the horrible values shown through in their writing, but I don’t think they do. Opposite of cancel culture? Or maybe their values do shine through and I am oblivious.
Open question to me.
With Kipling I think I am oblivious because I haven’t much contact with Indians. I had Indian ancestry friends in high school and college, but they were Americans too and so not as aware as their parents or grandparents. Other writers I still have issues. I love William Faulkner and Mark Twain, which horrifies Black friends of mine.
ETA I haven’t read any Harry Potter, but I love JK Rowlings adult novels and I am appalled by her TERFishness.
Ken
Who, from the sound of things, downloads the new Office onto about 350 3.5″ floppies, which he then walks over to your house together with his carefully-maintained external floppy drive, plus the chain of six converters needed to connect it to a USB port.
Origuy
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, my mistake.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Kipling was born in India in Mumbai actually. He spent his formative years in the city of my birth. His father is the architect of one of its most famous landmarks. It used to be called the Victoria Terminus.
Fair Economist
@prostratedragon: Yeah, last time I had a colonoscopy they gave me Propofol, which *mostly* goes away pretty quickly – but to fat cells, from where it diffuses back slowly as it get metabolized by your liver. So I did feel kinda woozy for about day – the requirement to not drive seemed very reasonable to me.
Brachiator
I was listening to a film review podcast.
Enthusiastic cheers for “King Richard,” with Will Smith and the Williams sisters and their daddy. In theaters and on HBO Max.
Also big thumbs up for “Ghostbusters Afterlife.” In theaters.
I want to see these movies, but still hesitant about going out to the movies.
I can stream “King Richard.” Don’t know if there is a surcharge.
Ninedragonspot
One of my favorite Hokkien words is the word for “tears” – ba̍k-sái目屎, which might be translated as “eye-shit”.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: He was a colonialist but he did lose an adored son in a stupid war, which he acknowledged afterwards.
Kalakal
One of my favourite bits of playing with words is a 400 year old Elizabethan pun. HMS Warspite was launched in the 1590s and the name sounds suitably hardcore “War’s spite” but spite is Old English for a woodpecker, from the German specht so the War Woodpecker sounds pretty good when all ships were built of wood
sab
@sab: I have loved “Without Benefit of Clergy” since I was twelve and I still tear up when I read it.
Brachiator
@sab:
The only writer I totally approve is Anonymous.
This kind of thing gets tough. Some writers works fortunately do not reflect the negative aspects of their lives. Others, are much more difficult to accept.
But there are few artists who can withstand much in the way of moral or ethical scrutiny.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
I wasn’t in any way trying to excuse Kipling his racist colonial views and actions. But the fact remains that he was a hugely influential and often entertaining writer in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, and many of the Just-So Stories are charming fantasies about how things might have happened. I absorbed these stories at my grandparents’ knees as a toddler — long, long before I had any concept of the inhumanity of Empire — and those happy childhood memories are an integral part of who I am. I truly don’t mean to upset you, but I will never not love knowing how the elephant got his trunk.
sab
@Ninedragonspot: My sister says ” go pee” is vulger in two languages. The Mandarin is “dogfart”. The English is obvious.
Sister Golden Bear
For all my cat-servant jackals:
Hewwo, aren’t the cuuuutest little hooman evaaah! Aren’t you?! Now bring me tuna and I shall let you live, today.
sab
@Sister Golden Bear: Our new adoptee, Dobby, only just started purring for me. Then last night he started the Starscream midnight yowling for “I want something and I want it NOW.”
I think we need to reevaluate his training.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: I am not upset. Just pointing out that not all racist bigots are country bumpkins toting guns. They can be erudite and beloved. He basically ran the early 20th century version of Go Fund Me for the unrepentant Butcher of Jalianwala Bagh.
schrodingers_cat
@Sister Golden Bear: Cats think we are huge ungainly kittens who can’t hunt or wash themselves. So they use baby talk to get us to do the simplest things like serving them.
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: I think “cancel culture” is a silly thing proposed by political operatives, but the underlying issues are important. Do you read writing by people whose politics or other views appall you? I do often, when their politics don’t infuse their writing. But this has been an ongoing concern for most of my reading life.
I read to learn, and I read to sharpen my morals. I don’t read to have my mind poisoned.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: He did, and that was horrible. Also very long past. Did what he did turn up in his writing? I don’t know.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: I don’t know either. I have read some of his poems that were in my school selection and I have seen various versions of Jungle Book.
Kalakal
one that always intrigued me was the English/American leftenant/lieutenant pronounciation for the same spelling.
Apparently when the captain of an Italian medieval merecenary company was away the senior sargeant was in locum tenens ( holding the place of, where we also get the medical locum from) . In French this became lieutenant . The English took, translated it the first half of it, lieu to left, but couldn’t be bothered to change the spelling. Americans use the French pronounciation. Oddly the English do use “in lieu of” quite a lot and have resisted all te
mptation to mispronounce it.
Western military ranks have interesting etymology
Army are nearly all from medieval Italian/latin
Navy are nearly all
Norman French – officers
Anglo Saxon – menials except Admiral which is Arabic
SiubhanDuinne
@sab:
I’m not really understanding your point. I read for lots of reasons: for information, for inspiration, for entertainment and escapism, and for the sheer emotional/aesthetic pleasure of seeing the language beautifully used. And yes, I often read things I know I’ll disagree with (I subscribe to and read FTFNYT and WaPo, for heaven’s sake!)
With respect, I don’t think your mind is going to be poisoned by reading “The Making of the Armadillo” or “The Elephant’s Child.”
sab
I have written a bunch of comments I forgot to post. ( nitwit)
I think reading some of these writers depends on where you start from. Kipling opens up new ideas to me ( outside of his colonialsm.) Ditto Wm Faulkner.
They might be appalling to you, but they move me forward a lot. I like to discuss the difference in perspective.
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: It has been a long time, but a lot of Kipling short stories were pretty contemptuous of Hindus and rah rah for Muslims. I have no opinion either way, but he sure did
ETA Other stories of his are completely innocuous. That’s my point. Okay to read, or racist as shit. He did both. Not racist as shit, but at least disturbingly racist.
BruceJ
@SiubhanDuinne:
actually it’s useful, as you can tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile, based on whether they see you later, or see you in a while…
Kalakal
@schrodingers_cat: Orwell described Kipling as a
Good Bad Poet which always struck me as very accurate. He was a brilliant writer with some awful ideas.
Someone who could describe colonial wars as ” savage wars of peace” had a gift for language.
The story of fundraising for that monster Dyer has been contested
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/punjab/rudyard-kipling-gave-10-for-dyer-fund-756595
Kipling was without any doubt a thourogh going colonialist. His attitudes were actually pretty complex but he certainly makes my sad list of people who produced work I love/admire but I fel very different about the person themselves
schrodingers_cat
He didn’t think people of India were capable of ruling themselves, he didn’t see us as completely human. We have a word for it and it is not complex.
Ninedragonspot
@sab: Your sister is correct
Kalakal
@schrodingers_cat: Several words , he was an imperialist, he was a racist to name but two
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
Whatever I was given last time was good stuff. Out like a light and when it was gone and I woke up, it really was gone. And no, I couldn’t drive then either. The stuff I got for an angiogram was goooooood stuff. Awake during with zero pain and I talked non stop for the 6 hrs I had to lay very still on my back afterwards. Of course I’m pretty sure that during those 6 hrs no one could have stopped me from talking.
Gary K
@stinger: In the mirror I now see my dear grandfather, but I’m older than he ever was.
prostratedragon
@Fair Economist: I’ve had propofol and fentanyl for various things in the last few years. My favorite advisory is not to make critical financial or similar decisions for a day or so. (I think pardoning a turkey would be ok though.)
schrodingers_cat
Friday art for the respite thread.
prostratedragon
@sab: Siamese? Tommy turned into the town crier on his after-midnight patrols.
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: Ooo, thanks. You’ve inspired me to start coloring again, though so far I’m just working on voter postcards that were meant to be colored.
Checking my aspect ratio issues, is the basic figure a circle or an obloid?
schrodingers_cat
@prostratedragon: circle
Mel
@HeleninEire: Peace and a hug to you. Your mom surely would be very proud of the how the little girl that she loved has grown into a such a thoughtful, strong, caring adult, as your comments and kindnesses to others here have shown you to be.
I hope your day was beautiful and healing, and filled with quiet joys and good memories.
HeleninEire
@Mel: Thank you. ❤
schrodingers_cat
@prostratedragon: Do share your work sometime!