#45740
10/24/2001 5:00 PM
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In an article on anthropology, I ran into a word appropriate for upcoming holiday.
not in dictionaries I have access to, but easy to guess: "guising"
Let's have some others.
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#45741
10/24/2001 5:46 PM
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#45742
10/24/2001 5:56 PM
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Nope, it's a slightly technical word for "masquerading" for ritual purposes.
But when I looked, I found it in a timely advertisement. (Halloween masks)
That one was fairly easy. Here's a tougher one: Who was Grimr?
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#45743
10/24/2001 6:51 PM
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#45744
10/24/2001 6:56 PM
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#45745
10/24/2001 7:08 PM
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"Grimr" was said to be one of Odin or Wotan's other names, meaning "Masked Man".
Here's a real toughie: What does "excamation" mean? Probably pretty much a technical term.
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#45746
10/25/2001 12:25 AM
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The origin of "Trick or Treat"
The secular tradition of trick-or-treating has its roots in both the pagan and
Christian holidays. The practice can be traced to the original Halloween, known
as Samhain, an ancient Celtic New Year's festival during which human and
animal sacrifices were made to the Lord of the Dead and the sun. During
Samhain, after offering a feast to the dead, masked and costumed villagers
representing the souls of the dead paraded to the outskirts of town leading the
ghosts away. In medieval times, Christians dressed as their favorite saints for the
All Hallows procession.
There is also a possible connection with Guy Fawkes celebrations of
post-Renaissance England. In these, children dressed up as the executed
conspirator to beg "a penny for the Guy" from passing strangers. A traditional
Irish custom on Samhain eve was the soliciting of contributions in the name of
Muck Olla, a shadowy Druidic figure who would be sure to wreak vengeance on
the ungenerous. Muck Olla's vengeance gradually became transformed into the
tricks of disappointed human revelers.
Now a word question: How in Sam Hill is "Samhain" pronounced?
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#45747
10/25/2001 7:29 AM
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#45748
10/25/2001 8:21 AM
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enthusiast
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Pronunciation of Samhain is dead tricky. It's one of those that I read in my book on Irish and practise a few times, never sure that I've got it right.
I think it's "sow in", as in the pig family are knocking at the door so let the sow in, but with a nasalized w. Yup, a nasalized w. That's modern Irish. The mutated m was earlier a nasalized v.
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#45749
10/25/2001 11:47 AM
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Hey, if you can umlaut it you can nasalize it. I always thought of it as a voiced bilabial fricative but then I was just guessing.
Guy Fawkes Day - Nov 5. Interesting that it is closer to the real* cross quarter day than our modern dating of Halloween/All Saints' Eve-Day.
*Real as in strict count from solstice to equinox (Nov 5/6 this year).
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#45750
10/25/2001 1:16 PM
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Irish Gaelic pronunciation is rather difficult to learn, and for me harder to remember. Needlessly modest NW is as expected correct. 1.Samhain (Celtic) ... in the pagan calendar. Samhain may be pronounced in a number of ways but the most common pronunciation is "sow-in" (sow rhymes with cow). The modern day ... http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/samhain.html
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#45751
10/25/2001 7:42 PM
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"Guy" must be a very old name, back to Norman era, when it would have been pronounced hard g "Gee".
Now it is pronounced like "buy", but was it so pronounced at the time of the Gunpowder Plot?
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#45752
10/25/2001 8:07 PM
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I fear that I have (litterally) a pronounced case of samhainophobia.
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#45753
10/25/2001 9:17 PM
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Which just goes to prove that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, no matter how litterall you get! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#45754
10/25/2001 9:36 PM
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Dear CK: I was counting on your knowing the eee vs eye answer.
And I am mildly lachrymose that nobody questioned "Sam Hill" I don't have any idea how it originated.
PS I finally found a site about it, but it wasn't worth citing. Most probably antique euphemism for "hell".
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#45755
10/25/2001 9:54 PM
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One of the usual games at Halloween parties for kids used to be bobbing for apples. I learned something new from that URL.
For example, bobbing for apples was a marriage divination that indicated
who (the first person to bite an apple) would marry first in the coming year.
Sounds as though that ought to have been restricted to young adults instead of kids.
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#45756
10/26/2001 12:20 AM
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Here is a URL with information about Guy Fawkes, including assertion he was also called "Guido" which suggests he pronounced his name the modern French way. In 1605, Guy Fawkes (also known as Guido - yes, really) and a group of conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. http://www.bonefire.org/guy/index.html
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#45757
10/26/2001 2:07 AM
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Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
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"Sam Hill" is indeed a euphemism for hell. My father used to ask, rhetorically, "What the Sam Hill blazes do you mean by .... ?"
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#45758
10/26/2001 7:31 AM
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Around 1600 the long /i:/ sound of Guy, Guido (and of buy, blind, mice, etc.) was in the middle of changing to the modern /ai/. Authentic performances of Shakespeare, and of songs from the same period, use the diphthong /@i/ (where @ = schwa).
The effect is something like the French oeil.
A similar vowel is still heard in the West Country of England, where people will call you moey loev at first meeting.
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#45759
10/26/2001 7:47 AM
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My dictionary (Chambers) marks guiser as (Scot.) and also gives guisard. These it glosses by the equally evocative word mummer. However, Alan Garner wrote a book The Guiser, I think of short stories, folk tales. I'm a huge Garner fan but to my shame I haven't read this. But he's very much a Cheshire writer, so I'd expect his use of 'guiser' to be local for him.
The splendidly snappy word geezer is a variant of 'guiser' too.
The root is wise, meaning 'way, manner', as in 'in this wise' and 'clockwise'; taken from Germanic into French with the usual change to a gw- sound. (I always wonder if that was Breton influence.)
A guise is a way of behaving, a manner or mannerism, an external appearance: and thus by extension such an appearance that one is capable of adopting or dissembling or dis-guising.
Well I enjoy language. :-)
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#45760
10/26/2001 8:05 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Guising is the word used by children in Edinburgh, always guising, never "trick or treating". Reading a discussion of Halloween in another thread, I noticed mention of its ancient origins. I have been having a discussion with a neighbour for a while. It seems that observance of the tradition is quite recent in some areas. I grew up in Lancashire which has a large Irish population and where the Pendle witches were part of local folklore http://members.aol.com/NutterWV1/PENDLE.htm, so as children, we always dressed up, ducked for apples and went "trick or treating" with costumes and a large stuffed "Guy" not only for sweets but for money ( largely frowned on now that people recognise the danger of children setting off their own fireworks) to help pay for the fireworks for bonfire night on the 5th, the two events were interconnected. We made our lanterns (I've just remembered that they were made from swedes or turnips)), on Halloween and took them with us to the bonfire night parties on the 5th. In other parts of England, certainly amongst friends of mine living further south or maybe without a large Irish population, there doesn't seem to be much history of the celebration of Halloween, so although the origins of the event are undoubtably ancient, it has grown greatly in recent years.
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#45761
10/26/2001 8:12 AM
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Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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>Would love to know which species of turnips those were, for the ones we grow here on the farm would provide only elfin-sized lanterns. I think that part of the problem is that in Scotland and the North East of England (not so sure about Ireland), turnips are swedes and swedes are turnips, so are bigger and with a flat bottom, more like the size of small pumpkins. I have seen larger turnips around, maybe our wet boggy soil helps them grow bigger! According to the following site, swedes are also known as swedish turnips and were developed in the seventeen century http://www.vegetables.co.nz/veg/veg.cfm?i=46
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#45762
10/26/2001 11:34 AM
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#45763
10/26/2001 11:41 AM
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The splendidly snappy word geezer is a variant of 'guiser' too.
Nicholas! A beloved Brit-speaking friend of mine pronounces the word geyser as geezer, whereas I and everyone I know of here says it with the long-i sound, as I would say guiser. Geyser isn't related to guiser, is it?
Why the difference in pronunciation, do you know?
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#45764
10/26/2001 1:37 PM
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Isn't that contracted from samhainella?
TEd
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#45765
10/26/2001 2:06 PM
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the "swedes" that Jo (jmh) talks about are the kind of turnip known in NY (and elsewhere in US, but i am not sure if everywhere) as Rutabaga's. they are large, heavy and yellowish, with a purplish top. rutabaga is the swedish name for them. what local vegetable stores (shops) call turnips are smaller (about the size of a large beet) and have a shape similar to a beet, (globular, but with a tapering point at the bottom) and white flesh. turnips also come, like beets, with the greens attached, and the same are also eaten.
(they are one of my favorite veggies, as kids, we even ate them raw!)
this is not a food thread!
this is not a food thread!
this is not a food thread!
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#45766
10/26/2001 2:26 PM
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Dear jmh: I am brokenhearted that you did not comment of pronunciation of that guy Guy Fawkes. Does his first name rhyme with pee or with pie?
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#45767
10/26/2001 2:35 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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>I am brokenhearted that you did not comment of pronunciation of that guy Guy Fawkes. Does his first name rhyme with pee or with pie?
Mend your heart dear Bill, I did not reply because I thought you might like a definitive answer, rather than a personal one. In my experience his first name rhymes with pie but in his day, who knows?
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#45768
10/26/2001 3:16 PM
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#45769
10/26/2001 3:53 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Sounds like it is one of those Markwis/Markee (Marquis), fillet/filley (fillet) kind of words!
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#45770
10/26/2001 4:26 PM
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Dear jmh: now you are prolonging my torment. How do you pronounce the first name of the Gunpowder plotter? Take pity on me, please!
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#45771
10/26/2001 4:29 PM
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How do you pronounce the first name of the Gunpowder plotter?
For that matter, how do you pronounce his *last name?
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#45772
10/26/2001 4:34 PM
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>This is probably too obvious to note here, but I'll go ahead and obvliate[sic]:
I'm *sure that was just a typo/oversight on your part, but obviously the word wanted here is obviate, to make obvious.
-ron o.
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#45773
10/26/2001 4:42 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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I have never heard it pronounced any other way than G(eye) Forks! Heaven knows what his friends called him.
The sanitised version of the poem in the website listed by Bill is:
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
the version that I grew up with was:
Remember, Remember the fifth of November
The terrible gunpowder plot
A naughty young fella
Got caught in a celler
and ... cor what a hiding he got!
(Trans: a good hiding is a beating)
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#45774
10/26/2001 4:45 PM
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tsuwm ::& Faldage: your ignorance is excusable, failing to conceal it is questionable. UK experts, where are you?
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#45775
10/26/2001 4:50 PM
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Dear jmh: Thank you, thank you. I was afraid it was one of those Brit things they keep concealed so they can secretly mock US ignorance of their arcana.
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#45776
10/26/2001 4:59 PM
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Which leaves US'ns wondering how a Sassenach transplanted to Caer Edinn would pronounce *that.
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#45777
10/26/2001 5:04 PM
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>tsuwm ::: your ignorance is excusable, failing to conceal it is questionable.
wot da #$&%... I was jest responding to someone else's digression. keep your singlemindedness to yerself, bud!
-joe bfstplk
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#45778
10/26/2001 5:04 PM
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obvliate
the word wanted here is obviate
Or perhaps the word in the wind is a clever anagram masquerading as a typo.
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#45779
10/26/2001 5:13 PM
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And sometimes one wonders both in flatline and in threadnodist modes to which post a response is being made. Excusably ignorant
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