A friend of mine in Spain originally comes from a small village in the north called La Hija de Dios (God's Daughter), which I think is rather a beautiful name for a village... Unfortunately, he doesn't know anything about why it is called like that...
I was looking over Bridget96's bio this morning and think I am safe in saying Hija de Dios derives its name from Bridget having once been seen there; but, since she *is* a goddess, it would be unseemly to speculate in what century this may have been. ...
Something else just occurred* to me. If our goddess has a bio, surely the verb form of "to live" applies** to the Divine. This would suggest an answer to harrysiegel's query under "lives" in "Q&As about words." I will have to amend my early opinion and say "God enters our hearts and lives" means "God enters our hearts and dwells there." To forestall any peanut gallery mumblings, this is no plug for religion, but a stopper (meant ludely, not lewdly): A new Divine rises on our shorter time horizon; Her number is 96.
*"To occur to" is an interesting expression, think?
**Can a thing be said to apply *to* God, or can it only be said to be an attribute *of* God? And if a thing *can* be said to apply to God, a a verb be such a *thing*? (PGMs, again, are out of place)
And because someone mentioned "the longest word that isn't a Welsh Town", a story about Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. - When I was a grubby teenager we had codewords based on place names we wrote on "love-letter" envelopes: BURMA=Be Undressed Ready my Angel; Norwich=(k)Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home, etc. You get the picture, right? The august Daily Telegraph had a competition a few years ago for some new ones, and Llan... won with a phrase starting "Listen Love, Accountancy's No Fun.." and ending up "Oh God, Oh God, Oh Christ, Hanky!" I didn't find the complete answer with Google yet - can anyone post it?
A new Divine rises on our shorter time horizon; Her number is 96.
ahhhhh if it were only true, my dear. lest this get out of hand, let me take this chance to assure you - one and all - that my stated profession was a capricious misnomer, which could have been equalled only if tsuwm had've listed his as "simpleton" (sorry to pick on you, tsuwm; i had a whole list going in my mind but feared i'd leave someone out in my indirect praises).
bottom line is i just thought 'goddess' sounded a bit more catchy than '7-years without a degree college dropout, currently unemployed'.
[retreating back to Olympus to dine on her mid-morning ambrosia emoticon]
Fascinating stuff, Rod. I wonder where our resident Taffy is to fill us in. Maybe in the meantime, you'd like to start trying to build a story out of a really long place name Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu
Jackie, I'm deadly serious. "Daffydd", or however the Welsh spell it, is a very common Welsh name, it is "David." From that name, has come the use of "Taffy" to refer to any Welshman, in the same way that "Paddy" is used as a generic term for an Irishman, and "Jimmy" for Glaswegians.
And between Lewes and Newhaven in East Sussex, UK is the small village "Tarring Neville". Who Neville is/was and why he should be tarred, I have been unable to find out.
Well, I sneaked a couple in before this: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu The Adventure Usually Mark awoke terrified and worried. He always knew a tired and nervous ghetto inhabitant had absolutely no glamour, and kids only another untouchable. An unusually optimistic tone announced Mark's attempt to end a truly unfulfilling reality. "I'll pack underwear, (knickers and keks), and panties (in mauve)." An unworldy noise grated across his obsessive ramblings, Oh No! Uncle Kevin upstairs probably, or Kevin's Aunt Isobel whistling. His emnity newly uplifted, acquiring a knife, impassioned, the avenger noiselessly and relentlessly advancing himself upstairs....
If you want an ending, you'll have to find a longer place name! Rod Ward
As I recall (I am half Welsh and learnt a little) the "y" in Daffyd is like "i" in "in", "is", "it", or even "David". But in "Ar Hyd Y Nos" (All Through the Night)it is an "ee" sound. I will see if I have names in my Welsh Dictionary with English proununciations (or ask my aunt, or wait for a better post!)
Daffydd would tranliterate to something like the SE phonemes of DAH-vith. The double 'ff' makes the /f/ sound, whereas single 'f' = /v/ as there is no such letter in the Welsh alphabet. In Ar Hyd Y Nos I think I would render it something like Ar~rrrrr Heed Er Noss (like 'norse' without the rhotic sound!) So the two examples of 'y' seem to be pronounced very differently, depending on context.
(But bear in mind I am not even half-Welsh, indeed - just interested in language and living in Wales, so I am happy to be corrected by Auntie Myfanwy )
The posts have gone a bit wide again. To read have to move bar so it obscures poster"s name. On my screen it started with your post, Max. (Ducking head and cringing for embarrassing MQ) But then perhaps it's just me. wow
Sorry about that. Mav's right, you should see the road sign! It's something of a tourist attraction, about an hour and a half from my place. Quite why anybody would want to drive into the middle of nowhere to some utterly unremarkable hill just to take a photo of themselves next to a road sign is beyond me.
I visited my aunts this weekend and was reminded during the journey of a placename I have wondered about for years. On the road out of Gloucester (p. Gloster) to Birdlip (do birds HAVE lips?) there is a sign to "Cold Slad". Now it is obvious to me that this was originally for some bizarre reason called "Cold SAlad" and at some stage for an equally bizarre reason dropped an "a" along the way. But a couple of years ago in Scotland I found out the "a" was on holiday (or had been kidnapped) but was now living in a place called "Aira Force". Does anybody know of other places that have gained or lost letters and can we pair them up? Rod
Ah, Rodward, you have touched upon a pet theory of mine.
The theory of vowel migration
which is that, in the past, the people of Eastern Europe and the people of Hawaii were one. However, a great dispute arose between two large groups of the people, and in order to avoid massive war, the two groups agreed to go their separate ways. In doing so, they allocated the parent group's resources between them, and when it came to the language, the Eastern Europeans took all the consonants, while the Hawaiians took all the vowels.
Now, the Welch were apparently all mixed up in this too, but didn't go with either group, and ended up confusing their consonants and their vowels.
And the Chinese and Japanese didn't get either, and had to settle for pictures.
Sparteye - thanks for that one. It reminds me of Paul Merton's question about what happened when Czechoslavakia split. The Czechs and Slovaks each got their own republic, but where did all the "o"s go? Rod
This is an eerie case of "great minds think alike" or, if you prefer, independent discovery of fire.
A while back I alluded to The Great Vowel Movement, but apparently never got around to posting it. In my theory, it was the Finns and the Hungarians, once warring neighboring tribes existing in what is now roughly Estonia, who split the spoils (but never the infinitives).
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Mav's right, you should see the road sign!
It's something of a tourist attraction, about an hour and a half from my place. Quite why anybody would want to drive into the middle of nowhere to some utterly unremarkable hill just to take a photo of themselves next to a road sign is beyond me.
