tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post116137511184519602..comments2024-03-16T00:21:43.240+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: local fauna expressions (part one)lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-83326246057205781662020-06-09T03:10:03.244+01:002020-06-09T03:10:03.244+01:00The fox vs. hedgehog proverb has come down to us t...The fox vs. hedgehog proverb has come down to us through literary culture, rather than oral. It's been popular in modern times ever since it was used in a famous essay on Tolstoy by Isaiah Berlin in 1953. Woody Allen wrote a character in New York spouting off about which of her friends were hedgehogs and which were foxes because she's an intellectual, not because she'd ever seen either a hedgehog or a fox. ktschwarznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-87562236574907372692020-06-06T10:57:19.563+01:002020-06-06T10:57:19.563+01:00Hedgehogs possibly but not porcupines in England.Hedgehogs possibly but not porcupines in England.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03873980358416658911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-18627488026025454082016-02-26T15:41:06.273+00:002016-02-26T15:41:06.273+00:00There's a fantastic use of “as a newt” in the ...There's a fantastic use of “as a newt” in the <a href="http://pages.citebite.com/k9b1j5h3gusd" rel="nofollow"><i>Yes Minister</i></a> episode ‘The Economy Drive’, where minister Jim Hacker's advisors are briefing him on the newspaper reports of his appearance at a recent function:<br /><br />Jim: Do any of them say anything other than “tired and emotional”?<br />Bernard: William Hickey said you were overwrought, Minister.<br />Jim: Just “overwrought”, nothing about being drunk?<br />Bernard: Just “overwrought”.<br />Sir Humphrey: “Overwrought as a newt,” actually.Smylershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12730932797492572763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-62040411450886552052012-04-07T21:28:02.693+01:002012-04-07T21:28:02.693+01:00My Mum has an expression for people trying to con ...My Mum has an expression for people trying to con someone- "They're no feart the coos get them" but I have never heard it from anyone else even here in Fife, so I'd be astonished if it is known in the US.<br />I have no idea why it means what it does either.MrTumshiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02956804668196814776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-47734275084321719652009-07-21T13:26:07.437+01:002009-07-21T13:26:07.437+01:00Re Pissed as a Newt.
In traditional cider making ...Re Pissed as a Newt.<br /><br />In traditional cider making in the south west of England, a frog was put into the barrel before it was sealed to finish the drink off. The frog was removed after a few weeks, still alive (indeed, it was suggested that the creatures longevity had been increased by the experience. This is a possible souce for the phrase.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01360344210109992860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-33455104275673937552007-01-03T19:11:00.000+00:002007-01-03T19:11:00.000+00:00Bug traditionally in BrE referred only to the bedb...<i>Bug</i> traditionally in BrE referred only to the bedbug, <i>Cimex lectularius</i>, whereas in AmE it can be any insect or indeed any bacterium.<br /><br />There is a story that an American staying in England told his host that he had "killed a bug with a billiard cue", which the Englishman took as a slander on the cleanliness of his house.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-74697302508933945312006-12-05T16:19:00.000+00:002006-12-05T16:19:00.000+00:00In the software-industry you have skunk works whic...In the software-industry you have <b>skunk works</b> which, as an informal term, is the programming which the programmers do when they look like they're working on a company-project but are actually creating a system they enjoy writing. Employers have understandably discouraged such activity, but it's said that some good software has been published after the developers somehow fessed up to what work they had been doing instead of official projects.<br /><br />At one software firm where I worked, some of our customers got to know our products so well that they were able to look at the otherwise hidden parts of our code (programming language) and figure out what skunk works our developers were up to. They would then formally ask for such functionality to be offered in the published software, though without blowing our programmers' cover.<br /><br />Our people would then magnanimously accede to the request but postpone the release of the skunk works for a decent interval. That way, they hoped, management wouldn't rumble that the code had already been clandestinely written.<br /><br />I once set up a company's intranet as skunk works and was suitably thanked for it. It could well be that a lot of the development of the internet has been skunk works, where people controlling magnetic storage and telecommunications-links have informally made spare connection-capacity available for sending around all the whacky web-stuff we know and love.<br /><br />There is, I believe, a formal meaning of <b>skunk works</b> which refers to secret, customarily defence-related, projects.<br /><br />Given my idiosyncratic (but 100% valid and worthwhile) habit of hyphenating compound-nouns, I have to exercise huge restraint in not hyphenating this expression.<br /><br />Different from skunk works software is a <b><i>beta</i></b> release. This is software that hasn't been fully tested by the programmers but which they offer to their braver or more foolhardy users so that they can see if they can break it. Some wag once said that it was so-named because <b><i>beta</i></b> is Greek for "doesn't work properly".<br /><br />Meanwhile, over in the marketing-departments of software (and other) companies, there are people paid to write <b>weasel words</b>, whose role it is to (erm) portray the products and services in the best possible light.<br /><br />Of course, software can have <b>bugs</b> in it, which has come in to BrE principally to mean such a programming-error. There is not, as far as I can tell, a widely-used BrE <b>bug</b> meaning a small creature. BTW, bugs are confused with viruses. The former are accidental (or caused by negligence), the latter deliberate. As well as helping spread viruses, the internet is inhabited by <b>spiders</b> and <b>worms</b>. And, of course, the <b>web</b> itself implies arachnid origins.<br /><br />Conspiracy-theorists suggest that both <b>web</b> and <b>net</b> are so-called because they are designed to ensnare the innocent and unwary. The ingenuity of one species (spider, man) is used to construct a physical means of trapping animate prey (flies, fish).<br /><br />Perhaps an explorer will one day discover a fearsome animal in remotest Peru which the local folk call a /blɔg/.Paul Danonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04816761952837296368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161642427829087902006-10-23T23:27:00.000+01:002006-10-23T23:27:00.000+01:00Thanks for all of the useful comments. Forgot to ...Thanks for all of the useful comments. Forgot to look up the thing I needed to look up at work today (it was a whale of a day, to use an animal expression). So part 2 is still delayed!lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161628314963593262006-10-23T19:31:00.000+01:002006-10-23T19:31:00.000+01:00For hedgehogs, I offer: "The fox has many tricks,...For hedgehogs, I offer: "The fox has many tricks, while the hedgehog has but one. But it's a very good one." (Translated variously from Ancient Greek, IIRC.)<BR/><BR/>The metaphor seems to be pretty widespread, though I don't know whether it is more common on one side of the Atlantic.<BR/><BR/>On the issue of animal names, the North American animal called a "moose" is called an "elk" in Europe, while the North American "elk" is a "red deer" in Europe. Also, the NA "caribou" is the same species as the European "reindeer".Doug Sundsethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01848091504066560951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161514558628472312006-10-22T11:55:00.000+01:002006-10-22T11:55:00.000+01:00Hedgehogs are also called "urchins" I read the oth...Hedgehogs are also called "urchins" I read the other day.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161488621118227382006-10-22T04:43:00.000+01:002006-10-22T04:43:00.000+01:00In outback Australia one often hears Aborigines sp...In outback Australia one often hears Aborigines speak of 'porcupines'. We don't have porcupines, or hedgehogs or any of those strange things, they use the word in reference to the echidna.<BR/>I don't think it has made it as far as the dictionary though (Kriol dikshenri, that is), it might be an isolated thing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161442934459977712006-10-21T16:02:00.000+01:002006-10-21T16:02:00.000+01:00Oh, and waiting for the kye. You could argue eith...Oh, and waiting for the kye. You could argue either way that that's cheating, but instead of doing that, I think you should start a blog about Scots English!lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161442460178276202006-10-21T15:54:00.000+01:002006-10-21T15:54:00.000+01:00Ah, ok, your point (and the Telegraph's--the link ...Ah, ok, your point (and <A HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/10/17/bogre17.xml" REL="nofollow">the Telegraph's</A>--the link would've been helpful!) with regard to Greenblatt is that Shakespeare wouldn't have seen a porcupine. That's probably true--he's probably referring to a non-local animal. <BR/><BR/>But...there is another possibility. there is evidence of <I>porcupine</I> being used to refer to hedgehogs (and one sense of <I>porcupine</I> in many dictionaries is 'an animal that has quills similar to a porcupine's'). Not evidence from Shakespeare's time, but I bring it up just to get the poor hedgehog some attention.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161438811000863982006-10-21T14:53:00.000+01:002006-10-21T14:53:00.000+01:00Oh, if it's folk wisdom you want: "You'll wait unt...Oh, if it's folk wisdom you want: "You'll wait until the kye come home". But that's cheating, isn't it?deariemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654632450454559188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161438745135944032006-10-21T14:52:00.000+01:002006-10-21T14:52:00.000+01:00"there are porcupines in N America too": "too"?"there are porcupines in N America too": "too"?deariemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654632450454559188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161429277345866162006-10-21T12:14:00.000+01:002006-10-21T12:14:00.000+01:00Nice quotation, but it doesn't really count in my ...Nice quotation, but it doesn't really count in my quest for local fauna idioms because (a) there are porcupines in N America too (though to be fair, they're in a different family), and (b) it's not an idiom, it's a quotation. That is to say, it's something Shakespeare wrote, but not something that's a set phrase used generally by speakers of the dialect. Still, nice quotation.<BR/><BR/>Of course, I cheated with <I>newt</I> and counted <I>pissed as a newt</I> even though there are newts on both continents--but there we did have an idiom and different ways of referring to them in the two countries.<BR/><BR/>Last night I couldn't think of a way to test whether <I>newt</I> is more common in the UK than <I>salamander</I> and vice versa for the US; if you search <I>newt</I> on the internet you get Newt Gingrich, nicknames for towns named <I>Newton</I>, acronyms for companies/products, etc. But today I thought of a test: searching the phrase <I>catching ~s</I>. It seems to work pretty well. Just to be safe, I specified that the <I>newt</I> ones couldn't have <I>Gingrich</I> in them (this didn't make a big difference). The only problem (as ever) is that one can't search US-only sites because it's the country without a country-specific URL suffix. But comparing these phrases between .uk sites and rest-of-world (not .uk) sites, we get:<BR/><BR/>UK: <I>catching newts</I> = 109<BR/> <I>catching salamanders</I> = 3<BR/><BR/>RoW: <I>catching newts</I> = 472<BR/> <I>catching salamanders</I> = 746<BR/><BR/>So, I think it's fair to call <I><B>newt</I></B> and <I><B>salamander</I></B> 'dialectal' words--at least as far as speaker's preferences for one over the other go.<BR/><BR/>And before you tell me that newts and salamanders are different things, note the following from <A HREF="http://www.caudata.org/cc/faq/FAQgen.shtml" REL="nofollow">Caudata Culture</A>:<BR/><BR/><I>Surprisingly, there is no really meaningful difference</I> [between newts and salamanders]<I>. The distinction is more historic than scientific. Newts are a subgroup of salamanders. All newts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts.</I><BR/><BR/>So, you could call a newt <I>a salamander</I>, but in the UK, one generally doesn't.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-1161418186682846762006-10-21T09:09:00.000+01:002006-10-21T09:09:00.000+01:00Here's a Telegraph comment on some Harvard scolar...Here's a Telegraph comment on some Harvard scolarship: Consider some lines in Henry VI concerning a soldier who "fought so long till that his thighs with darts/ Were almost like a sharp-quilled porcupine". According to Greenblatt, "Shakespeare himself had in all likelihood not served in the wars and had never seen a soldier's thighs pierced with arrows, but as a country boy, he had almost certainly seen his share of sharp-quilled porcupines."deariemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654632450454559188noreply@blogger.com