Thoughts & Walks

Hoist by one's Own petard

Tvindy offers an explanation of "Hoist by One's Own Petard" by giving us a conjugation of the french verb "peter". The phrase as we have it in our book refers to becoming a victim of one's own evil design or to get a taste of one's own medicine. The petard was a device employed in medieval warfare. It was loaded with an explosive device which if successfully fired could cause a degree of damage. if however the device was exploded prematurely, the person lighting it would be tossed into the air by the force of the blast. Now Tvindy's alternate explanation is derived from the verb "peter" which is French for "breaking wind". The petard was given its name by the sound it made when it exploded. An explosive breaking of wind therefore could, as Tvindy surmises, be strong enough to lift one up in the air!? I suspect this could be a challenge for the Mythbusters.

Tvindy also asks about the dervation of "when the Shit hits the fan". The Phrase Finder defines this as an "uproar caused when a previously kept secret situation becomes public". One derivation may be found here. Does anyone know of any other derivation?

"Hoi Polloi"

In a recent discussion with Geoff about the upper/middle class elite of Newcastle I used the term Hoi Polloi to decribe this particular group of people. I now realise that the term has been misused. The Wikipedia states that "Hoi Polloi" began to be incorrectly used in the 1950's to refer to the "elite" possibly because it sounds like "Hoity-Toity". It does in fact mean the complete opposite - "Hoi Polloi" is derived from the Greek "The Many" and was a condescending term used to describe "the masses" or "the great unwashed".

One of Geoff's Christmas presents was "The Book of Beginnings: A miscellany of the origins of superstitions, customs, phrases and sayings" by DR R and L Brasch. Fascinating reading! Does anyone, for example, know the origin of "Hoist by One's Own Petard"?

Spanish Phrase search

Attention all Spanish speakers - we need your assistance....

Sarah one of our daughters is writing her major work for English finals. Can anyone give us a phrase that would suit this scenario...

The story is set in Mexico and what we want is a phrase that would be meaningful and appropriate - the scene in question involves a young man in a broken family promising his younger sister that he will return to her after he finds a better situation somewhere. Sarah's teacher recommended that she incorporate a relevant Spanish phrase that the sister would remember ten years later.

Any ideas on what could possibly be used?

Práctica de español

Hola a todos. Quisiera practicar mi español. Aquí en Newcastle no conozco nadie que habla español. Por eso voy a escribir de vez en cuando en español. Yo sé que Pica, Numenius, Tvindy y Jonathan hablan español. ¿Hay otras personas en "blogdem" que hablan la lengua? ¿Pueden ustedes practicar conmigo?

The origin Of Words.

At lunch time today I was asked by Anna, youngest daughter, where does the word flour come from? Immediately we thought that the word must have been derived from French or German or Latin. Wrong - Latin and Spanish was farina, French was farine, German was mehl. I guess the German related to mill but nothing approximated flour.

Next step was a google search which took quite some time simply because every sight I looked at was absolutely fascinating. Did you know that if a product contains "unbleached flour", "enriched flour" or "unbleached wheat flour" it is code for refined flour with a bit of added whole wheat? "Natural" or "Made from Natural" means the manufacturer started with a natural source.

Finally I came across a web page called World of Words from "AskOxford.com". Here at last was an origin of flour.

"Flower (1225) came into the middle English as 'flour', from the Old French flour or flor, in turn from Latin flos or flor. The flour that is used to make bread makes use of flower in the sense ‘the best part,’ and originally meant ‘the finest quality of ground wheat’."