The Guardian lists a bunch of furrin terms used in football, including panna, used in Holland to refer to the nutmeg and, apparently, especially in Surinamese Dutch. It would be interesting to know where it came from. The only remotely related word I can find in SIL’s brilliant Suriname languages site is the Carib pena,…
Michael Quinion says it’s a weird word, so I guess I read weird books. Some early models had the benches raked so that everyone could see forward without standing up; accidents must have been spectacular. Spaniards travelled in char-á-bancs, as well as char-á-banes and charabáns (see porlan), and Cuba may have had the odd chalabán.…
Maxime calls it an anaphoneme. Pig Latin is more complex, but voice confidentiality tool Babble appears to be anaphonemic: Babble is a desktop device that connects to the telephone and sends the user’s voice out in multiplied and “babbled” form through proprietary speakers arranged in the work area. It achieves confidentiality without distracting the user…
These (from Carlos Westendorp Plaza) are OK: Autodate – type of potatoes Queque – cake Quineguar/chineguar – King Edward potatoes (the d -> g swap is interesting; it reminds me of some Andalusian dialects in which you get b -> g (abuelo -> aguelo) etc And this is a killer: Cambuyonero – Someone who trades…
Fernando Navarro suggests that both I and Joseph Townsend are wrong. The Spanish word for executioner, verdugo, he says, was applied originally to a rod cut green, verde, and used to administer beatings. If Townsend was wrong, then his confusion or that of his informer might have arisen if (a) executioners were clothed in, or…
Baron von Gizman (or whoever) threads his way round the that/which dilemma by using both on the No Kill I site. (No Kill I is a band thatwhich I have never heard, and thatwhich has been involved in a disturbing voodoo chicken situation.)
Re shepherds, Pío Baroja says that in the Navarre village inhabited by Silvester Paradox, hero of The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox (Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox, 1901) that the local guardians of public order were called ministers (ministros). (Silvestre Paradox is very strange and very funny. It’s a disgrace that…
Amando de Miguel says that Aura Grandal says that people in Ferrol, Galicia call policemen “chepas”, and that this derives from “shepherds”, which is what British engineers called the watchmen in the naval arsenals. I’m going to believe it, whether I do or not.