English words and expressions
English words and expressions
On this page I archieve my italki discussions about English words and expressions. I only copy and paste the main post here, in order to read comments by other users, click on the link to the italki forum.
Hornswoggle
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Johnny-on-the-spot
Which route will you take? Route 66!
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Johnny-on-the-spot
Which route will you take? Route 66!
Gamut, gambit and gauntlet (https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-252552)
He ran the whole gamut of political gambits but in the end he had to run the gauntlet of ridicule
I came across the word gambit and the phenomenon that people mix up gambit and gamut and for instance say "run the gambit" instead of "run the gamut". I find the articles about it very interesting and wanted to share them, just in case there's someone else who's also interested in this topic.
Run the gambit? https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/09/gamut-gambit.html
'Gamut' and 'Gambit' (and 'Gauntlet' Too). Know when to use (or run) each. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/gamut-and-gambit-and-gauntlet-too
I also find it fascinating that we have equivalent expressions in German that both have the same literal and figurative meaning. "Gambit" is an opening move in chess, a conversation starter as well as a tactic/clever plan. In German a move in chess is "ein Schachzug" but we can also use it for a tactic (the word "Gambit" also exists in German but is only used for an opening chess move in which you intentionally sacrifice a pawn). "Gamut" is the whole range of musical notes as well as the whole range of range of things that can be included in something. In German we can use the word "Skala" for both meanings.
The second article also threw in "to run the gauntlet" as this may also be mixed up with "to run the gamut", even though this has a total different meaning. I think it's interesting that the "gauntlet" in "to throw down the gauntlet (in German: den Fehdehandschuh werfen) and the one in "to run the gauntlet" (Spießrutenlaufen) are two different words and unrelated words, one derived from the Old French "gantelet" and the other from the Swedisch "gatlopp".
How common are gambit, gamut and gauntlet? Do you use these expressions? Do you think "to run the gambit" is wrong or do you think it's acceptable because it has been in use for quite some time (you can see examples in the first link). Are there equivalent expressions in your native or target languages?
Hornswoggle (https://www.italki.com/discussion/230910)
Funnily, when I asked my boys about "hornswoggle" they immediately told me that it's that "short Irish wrestler". "Hornswoggle" is the stage name of WWE wrestler Dylan Mark Postl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornswoggle) who suffers from dwarfism and often impersonated a leprechaun on stage.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (https://www.italki.com/discussion/229300)
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is another interesting expression I cam across in the TV series Blacklist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_work_and_no_play_makes_Jack_a_dull_boy. It means that one should also take off some time from work and enjoy leisure activities in order not to become a boring person.If you're a native English speaker claiming that you never heard this expression, then you clearly haven't watched The Shining by Stanley Kubrick with Jack Nicholson, as this proverb plays a prominent part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeOevu4zC5o.
If you're not a native English speaker and watched The Shining, you may say "Hey, I remember that scene but the sentence wasn't there!". You're right. It probably wasn't.
Here's the same scene in German: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqaMNPtye_M.
Kubrick shot the scene in several different language versions: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/read-the-alternative-phrases-to-all-work-and-no-play-makes-jack-a-dull-boy-stanley-kubrick-10312563.html.
The sentences in the other language versions aren't translations of "all work no play makes Jack a dull boy" though, but common proverbs in the respective languages and they have completely different meanings.
German: Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen (Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today)
Italian: Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca (The morning has gold in its mouth; we also have this in German: Morgenstund' hat Gold im Mund. It means it's better to rise early.)
Spanish: No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano (No matter how early you get up, you can’t make the sun rise any sooner)
French: Un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l’auras (What you have is worth much more than what you will have)
Do you use "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"? Do you know other films, books etc. where this expression is used? Do you know other language versions of The Shining and the respective proverb used in that scene? And what would be the actual accurate translation of "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" in your native tongue or target language?
In German, one could translate is as "Arbeit allein macht nicht glücklich" (Work alone doesn't make happy.)
Johnny-on-the-spot (https://www.italki.com/discussion/229253)
Yesterday, I stumbled over an interesting expression in the TV series Blacklist. A Polish branch of an American bank (that does a lot of shady business) was robbed. The FBI notices that one of the employees of the bank left it together with the robbers. They conclude that it was a kidnapping and interview the branch manager,
Agent Ressler: There was only one employee who swiped into the Warsaw branch the day of the incident who didn't swipe out. Kaja Tomczak.
Agent Keen: What can you tell us about her?
Strickland, executive vice president of the bank: Nothing, I'm afraid. As E.V.P., I typically have little contact with branches of this size and no contact with junior account managers.
Kloza, manager of the Polish branch of the bank: Before robbery, she went home sick. She must have forgotten to swipe her card on way out.
Agent Salerno (chuckles): Oh. Johnny-on-the-spot. Had that one locked and chambered, did we?
Kloza: I'm sorry... I do not understand this "Johnny-on-the-spot."
Strickland: That'll do, Kloza.
Kloza: This is your American comedy?
I looked up the word "Johnny-on-the-spot" and the English definition is "a person who is at hand whenever needed". Then I looked up the German translation and some online dictionaries translate it as "Hans Dampf in allen Gassen". But this seems wrong to me, as "Hans Dampf in allen Gassen" is rather the equivalent of "Jack of all Trades", "a person who can do many different types of work but who is not necessarily very competent at any of them.": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansdampf_in_allen_Gassen and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades,_master_of_none.
My question is: Can "Johnny-on-the-spot" and "Jack of all trades" be used synonymously or are they completely different? How would you translate "Johnny-on-the-spot" into German or other languages?
Btw, in the German dubbed version they say the following:
Agent Salerno: Ah, so schnell ne Antwort parat. Die kam ja wie aus der Pistole geschossen. (Ah, you had an answer ready real quick. That was quick like a shot.)
Kloza: Tut mir leid. Ich verstehe ehrlich gesagt nicht, worauf Sie hinauswollen. (I'm sorry. Honestly, I don't understand, what you're indicating.)
...
Kloza: Ist das Ihr amerikanischer Humor? (Is that your American humour?)
Which route will you take? Route 66! (https://www.italki.com/discussion/229010)
I was astonished to hear the word route pronounced /ɹaʊt/ (so, that it rhymes with "shout") in an American TV series as I was only familiar with the pronunciation /ɹuːt/ (so, that it sounds like "root") as it is common in British but also American English (apparently, depending on the region). Wiktionary states that route is also pronounced /ɹʉːt/ in Australia and /ɹut/ and /ɹʌʊt/ in Canada.
Now my question is: Do those who pronounce route as /ɹaʊt/ or /ɹʌʊt/, also say /ɹaʊt/ 66 or /ɹʌʊt/ 66 or do they pronounce the name Route 66 as /ɹuːt/ 66?
Also: Do you make a distinction between a router, a tool for cutting grooves, and router, a device for connecting to the internet, and pronounce the first as /ˈɹaʊtə(ɹ)/ or /ˈɹaʊtɚ/, while the second as /ˈɹuːtə(ɹ)/, or do you pronounce both the same as /ˈɹaʊtɚ/?
Here's a video for learners, where the different pronunciations of route and router are explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd9FRM-KUq8.
Do you know other words where the pronunciation depends on the context or the meaning?
Namous! The buckaroo vamoosed from the calaboose! (https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-252312)
Today I stumbled over the word "to vamoose" when watching the TV series Bones. Agent Booth said to Dr. Brennan "Let's vamoose!".
I found it interesting that "to vamoose" actually comes from the Spanish "vamos": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vamoose. It can be used to express "to run away, to flee; to hurry" and that it's a cognate of the obsolete British thieves' cant term "namous": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/namous.
Sometimes I also use foreign expressions to tell my kids to hurry up like "Vamos!", "Yallah!", "Allez-y !" or "Dawai!" and it seems that I'm not the only German to do so, the Russian "dawai" even made it into the Duden, the major German dictionary: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/dawai. "Yallah" is part of German youth slang as there are many youth with Turkish or Arab heritage: https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/jugendsprache-lass-ma-lesen-yallah-a-811877.html.
Anyway, "vamoose" sparked my interest in Spanish expressions that entered the English language and I found "buckaroo" (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/buckaroo) which derives from "vaquero" and means "cowboy" and "calaboose" that comes from "calabozo" and means "prison" (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/calaboose).
Question about Spanglish:
Do you know any other Spanish expressions (no matter if obsolete or still in use) that entered English but were adjusted to English spelling and/or pronunciation?
Question about the use of foreign expressions to say "let's go!":
Is it common in your native or target language to colloquially use expressions from other languages to say "let's go!"?
About parents, siblings and niblings (https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-251962)
The other day I stumbled over the word "nibling", i.e. a gender-neutral word for niece and nephew: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/jennifer-lopez-shares-video-about-transgender-nibling-brendon-n1237838. The term was coined in the 1950s but is only recently gaining more momentum: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-nibling.
I realised that this term doesn't exist in German. We could only refer to niece and nephew as niece and nephew but don't have a gender-neutral form like nibling. We do have the word "sibling" though:
brothers = Brüder
sisters = Schwestern
siblings = Geschwister
Now if you say, "nibling" isn't a real word but "sibling" has always been around, you might be surprised that using the word "sibling" in the sense of "brothers and sisters" is relatively new and only dates back to the beginning of the 20th century: https://www.etymonline.com/word/sibling. Originally, a sibling was just someone who was a relative belonging to the same "sibb". Why did the need for such a term arise? Wiktionary claims: "The term apparently meant merely kin or relative until the 20th century when it was utilised in a way that aided the study of genetics, which led to its specialized use. For example, the OED has a 1903 citation in which "sibling" must be defined for those who don't know the intended meaning." (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sibling#English)
In many languages the word sibling doesn't seem to exist. In French you just say
"frères et sœurs" (brothers and sisters) and in Spanish "hermanos", which can mean either brothers or siblings but definitely has only a male form ("hermanas" are sisters). Interestingly, in Spanish "padres" denotes both "fathers" and "parents", so there is no actual word that is either neutral or visually includes the moms as well. In Chinese you can say "父母" (father, mother) for parents" and "兄弟姐妹" for "siblings" which literally means "elder brother, younger brother, elder sister, younger sister".
Interestingly, in Turkish there is only one word for brother, sister and siblings: kardeş. You can specify by saying erkek kardeş (man sibling), kız kardeş (girl sibling) and kardeşler (siblings). For parents there is the word "ebeveyn" that derives from the Arabic الأبوان which is a dual form of أب (father), so it's "two fathers = parents" and similar to "padres" in Spanish. But another Turkish word for parents is "anne baba" which means "mom dad".
What's your native tongue or target language like?
Like Spanish: padres, hermanos [fathers = parents, brothers = siblings]
Like French: parents, frères et sœurs (parents, brothers and sisters]
Like German: Eltern, Geschwister [parents, siblings]
Like Chinese: 父母 [father, mother], 兄弟姐妹 [elder brother, younger brother, elder sister, younger sister]
Like Turkish: anne baba, kardeş [mom dad, sibling(s)]
Or do you have a different system to denote parents and siblings? Is there an equivalent to "nibling" in your language?
Whodunit, whydunit and howdunit (https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-247779)
I'm currently watching the TV series "The Sinner" with Bill Pullman. This series is not a typical crime story, a whodunit, where the detective is looking for the offender but he wants to know why the offender did what they did and this kind of crime story is called a whydunit. Then there's the howdunit, where the focus of the story is to find out how a crime was committed. The terms whodunit, whydunit and howdunit don't have any equivalents in German. So, if I had to translate the sentence "The TV series The Sinner is a whydunit" I wouldn't know what else to do, than rephrase it like this "In der Fernsehserie Der Sünder geht es darum herauszufinden, warum eine Tat begangen wurde." Hm, not very elegant.
Do you know languages where they have similar terms? Do you know any whydunits and howdunits?
Dollars to doughnuts (https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-246375)
I came across this expression in the TV series Blacklist and found it quite interesting. It's an American expression used to emphasise one's certainty. Here you can find an interesting article explaining the origin of this phrase: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/06/origin-phrase-dollars-donuts/. It also states that there were similar expressions like "dollars to dimes", "dollars to dumplings", "dollars to cobwebs" and "dollars to buttons" but apparently "dollars to doughnuts" is the one that caught on.
If I were to translate this phrase to German I'd either say "Da kannst du Gift drauf nehmen" (You can take poison on that) or "Das ist so sicher wie das Amen in der Kirche" (It's as certain as the amen in church).
Are you using "dollars to doughnuts" or a different expression to express your absolute certainty in English? Are there similarly colourful expressions in your native or target languages, that you'd use to translate phrase?
Irregardless - Are you a disirregardlesser? (https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-245441)
Today I saw a post on FB which showed a screenshot of the entry "irregardless" and the headline "Well English language, you had a good run". The person posting this picture wrote "Nooooooooo! Just when we thought 2020 couldn't get worse, Merriam Webster started recognizing 'irregardless' as a word." Seeing the word "irregardless" in a dictionary seems to anger a lot of people, so that Merriam Webster felt compelled to explain why they added it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-irregardless-a-real-word-heh-heh. I know that the prefix ir- is redundant as -less is already a negative but still it's surprising to me that irregardless is often called a non-word. Even a pointless word is a word if it conveys a meaning and is understood by a group of speakers who communicate with each other. Merriam Webster isn't the first dictionary to add this word, you can actually find it in most online dictionaries. The word is much discussed:
Dictionaries are in general descriptive, they show how words are commonly used by speakers of a certain language.
So, what's your take on it? Are you ok with seeing "irregardless" in a dictionary, together with an explanation that it's non-standard use and that it's better to use "regardless"? Or do you think of "irregardless" as an abomination that shouldn't be mentioned in dictionaries at all, despite many people using it?
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