Content tagged with “language”

There are 9 item(s) tagged with “language” on this site.

Other tags used by these items: french, geography, latin, idiom, dutch

-cum-
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
April 15, 2022
Words
107

“ This is a prepositional phrase from Latin which means ‘with.’ So ‘X-cum-Y’ means ‘X with Y.’ Incidentally, this is where the degree honors come from: cum laude: ‘with praise’ magna cum laude: ‘with great praise’ summa cum laude: ‘with highest praise’ ”

Diacritic
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
March 7, 2023
Words
76

“ This is an accented character, which you mostly see in languages other than U.S. English. French, for example, uses several diacritics, like in ‘façade’ and ‘café’. Vietnamese uses accented characters in almost every word. ”

Diphthong
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
February 27, 2023
Words
182

“ This is the phonetic sound that results when two vowels are next to each other: ‘ai’ and ‘ea’ and ‘ou,’ for example. It’s pronounced ‘diff-thong.’ ”

Geographic Metonym
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
December 28, 2021
Words
281

“For example, if often takes the form of a place name being used to refer to (1) a significant event that happened at that place; or (2) an organization, institution, industry, or concept associated with that place. Examples: ‘The White House’ to refer to a presidential administration ‘Wall Street’…”

“Je Ne Sais Quoi”
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
January 15, 2022
Words
57

“ French for ‘I don’t know what.’ It means some quality that you find appealing, but cannot describe in words. ”

Kill
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
October 1, 2024
Words
124

“‘Kill’ is a borrowed word from Dutch. In that language it means ‘body of water’ or, more often, ‘creek.’ Thus, names like Fresh Kills, West Kill, Peeksill, Fishkill, usually refer to a nearby body of water. This usage is common in Upstate New York. Oddly, the Catskill Mountains might be a…”

-ville
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
September 8, 2021
Words
274

“It’s a French suffix meaning ‘city,’ ‘town,’ or ‘farm.’ The French were allies during the American Revolution. From Wikipedia : France’s help was a major and decisive contribution towards the United States’ eventual victory and independence in the war. This led to positive French sentiment after…”