Zompist Bboard Again

I would interpret calling non-relatives "uncle" or "auntie" a feature of Chinese, South Asian, or Caribbean cultural influence, and probably a few others I'm not aware of. I never hear it from "native born" Americans. I think it was more common in the UK at one time, b...

Or a meatball made mostly from offal!

My family called my maternal Grandfather Grandpa & the Paternal one Grandad. My maternal Grandmother somehow ended up as Nanny, with her mother known as Great Nanny.

"In several regions of the Atlantic seaboard a glide vowel is introduced between a preceding [k], [g] and [ɑː], as in the Virginia pronunciation of carter [kɪˈɑːtə], garden [gɪˈɑːdən], but this pronunciation is distinctly local or dialectal" — what the fuck?? This is common in Jamaican En...

Similarly meal can mean grain as well as a full serving of food.

FR Gateau "cake" → EN Gateau "soft moist cake with high cream content usually eaten with cutlery"

I've spent a lot of time browsing through this youtube channel when I've wanted to hear how a language sounds: it's just lots and lots of dubbings of Jesus biopics (one movie for adults, one movie for kids, and sometimes the intro to the former differs a little). It's got the advantages of having l...

The Russian word вокзал - vokzal for a railway station is said to come from the London district of Vauxhall. Supposedly a delegation from the Russian government investigating railway operations visited London & looked at a line being built in the area, & assumed that Vauxhall was the word fo...

mèþru wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 2:55 pm Not just Nigeria; it seems to be a general practice among very religious African Protestants in areas formerly colonised by the UK

I notice a few at work when updating customer records.

"Dutch" often just means anything evil, or the opposite of what is natural. A Dutch auction, for example, is an auction conducted in reverse (price starts high and gets lower). "Welsh" can mean something confusing, weird or stupid - so, a synonym for "Irish"*. So it's ...

See also “Dakota(h)”. Madison is a mostly female first name that slightly surprising in it's use as I would have expected it to have been given to boys due to the president James Maddison. I think it may be the resemblance to "Maddie" (from "Madeleine") that was decisive in this...

One name with an interesting usage is "Cheyenne". It's originally a place name and demonym, but of such recent origin that it's never been a surname - and it resembles historical English names that incorporate "Ann", like "Mary-Anne" and "Lou-Anne". Yet it se...

From personal experience it's fairly rare for people in England to have middle names that are normally surnames, let alone as first names, though the conventions seem to becoming more common in the last decade or so for boys, & even doesn't seem too rare for girls. When when I was at school (198...

Sometimes a lack of a dictionary between 2 particular languages can produce some odd results.

The bizarre "English As She Is Spoke" was written by Portuguese author who lacked an Portuguese - English dictionary, but had Portuguese - French & French - English ones to hand.