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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Nov 17, 2024 5:53:55 GMT
Because today is the 51st anniversary, a clip of Nixon's famous speech was just on the radio. Even though I am old enough to remember it first time round, I have always thought that he said 'I am not a crook', and furthermore, that he said it with the sort of stress on every word in the sentence that one might expect of someone Making A Point. But he can clearly be heard to say 'I'm not a crook', almost casually. Judging from the internet, I am not the only person to have believed in the wrong phrasing.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 17, 2024 13:07:22 GMT
It might because he said "Well, I'm not a crook". I can see how someone might mistake that "well" for "I", especially if he's speaking with a different accent than yours.
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Post by hawkwood on Nov 19, 2024 23:57:55 GMT
The phrase scot-free hasn't much to do with Scottish clans or even Scotland for that matter. Up until today it's been a phrase that's brought to mind outlaw clans like the MacGregors.
Alas I was quite happy imagining burly, kilted lumps with flowing, ginger manes havocing the English gentry of the North.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 20, 2024 5:00:51 GMT
I don't think I had even tried to guess where it came from. It was just one of those oddities.
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Post by Pacifica on Nov 20, 2024 17:01:26 GMT
The Latin verb ardere survived into French as ardre and ardoir, both archaic now.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 20, 2024 17:26:51 GMT
"Ardoir" kinda rings a bell, unlike "ardre".
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 20, 2024 17:40:52 GMT
Also, arder is very much alive in Portuguese, as evidenced by Portugal's Eurovision entry.
The chorus has the line sou chama que ainda arde "I'm (a) flame that still burns". The most common all-purpose verb for "to burn" is queimar, though. Wiktionary has this to say:
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Post by Pacifica on Nov 20, 2024 17:47:30 GMT
I was thinking it was funny that the French descendant of cremare was (as far as I know) exclusively colloquial (cramer). So I looked it up to see the word's history. I learned that it's a borrowing from Occitan, and that crémer also exists (it's archaic, and "a learned borrowing from Latin").
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 20, 2024 17:48:54 GMT
Interesting!
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 20, 2024 17:50:15 GMT
There are usually telltale signs of a word having been borrowed from Occitan, but I wouldn't have guessed it in this case.
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Post by Pacifica on Nov 23, 2024 5:14:02 GMT
"Spate" is another name for a flood. There was a great flood in Scotland in 1829 called the "Muckle Spate" (which means, well, "Great Flood"). I like that phrase. It sounds very apt.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 23, 2024 8:56:12 GMT
Well, kind of. It made me think of "mucous spit". In any case, it does have a nice ring to it. And I've just checked it: Wiktionary tells me "spate" is "possibly" related to "spit". |
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 23, 2024 9:02:57 GMT
And "muckle" is related to "much" (Middle English "muchel").
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Nov 23, 2024 9:12:00 GMT
Many a mickle makes a muckle.
Pedants, particularly from Scotland, get annoyed by this version of the phrase, and point out that it should be many a little makes a mickle, because mickle and muckle mean the same thing, and are just variants. But you can see why it changed. Everyone loves alliteration, and a mickle just sounds smaller than a muckle.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Nov 23, 2024 9:14:39 GMT
Allow me to propose my own version: many a bit makes a buttload.
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