I used the term high-falutin' in a PM today, and suddenly wondered about it. A Search revealed that we haven't had a discussion about it, though Dr. Bill, bless him, gave the origin:
wwh
(Carpal Tunnel)
Sat Jul 6 12:39:04 2002
63.206.232.118
Re: Surprise IV
High falutin or Hifaluten. Tall talk. (Dutch, verlooten, high-flown, stilted.) http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=75458 The term has only been used here 15 times, and 3 of those were an original and two copyings. There were a couple that had a g on the end of falutin', and at least one that didn't use a hyphen, but they were in essence all the same. Why don't we ever have a low-falutin' or just plain falutin'?
Thank you for your kind words, Jackie. I had completely forgotten that thread. Come to think
of it though, I can't remember any other phrases given us by the Dutch, who gave us two
of our very best presidents. Incidentally, a prominent historian in an article in The Vocabula Review,
said Theodore Rossevelt was our best read President.
I love that word, especially in the Music Man, by Meredith Willson. In one song, the Irish mother is belittling Marion the Librarian's penchant for literature:
". . . like Balzac and Shakespeare and all them other high-falutin' Greeks!"
Thank you for the origin, Dr. Bill. I like to know those things.
I can't remember any other phrases given us by the Dutch
I believe our word boss came from Dutch. Any others off hand?
>I believe our word boss came from Dutch. Any others off hand?
Yacht.
It came through French to get here, but boulevard is from the Dutch.
Why no low-falutin', asks
JackieAs "verlooten" is translated by Bill as "high-flown" High-falutin, presumably, translates as high - high-flown. Therefore, low-falutin' would translate as "low high-flown" which is very oxy-moronic.
I could see a use for it in an ironic or humourous context, but.
Like underwhelmed, which should, from its etymology, mean having the ground washed out from under you or, metaphorically, having your base of support taken away, but is used as a humorous antonym to overwhelmed.
daffodil (but not tulip!)
and, from
The Story of English by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil (the companion volume to the PBS series, which I missed, dammit), in part of a passage about the Renaissance:
In these times sailors were the messengers of language. Part of their vocabulary would have been "Low Dutch" words like fokkinge, kunte, krappe (probably derived from Latin) and bugger (originally a Dutch borrowing from the French), words that are sometimes inaccurately said to be "Anglo-Saxon."Who knew?! Okay, I have to admit that's one bit of info I retained from reading this book, ages ago....Now when I say naughty sweary words, instead of adding, "Pardon my French," which I used to do, I say, "Pardon my Low Dutch." People laugh but they don't get it....And I know, I know - it would be shorter and easier not to say any of it, from the sweary words on through to the pardon-seeking addendum...!
The passage goes on to say:
From the poetry of Spenser (who invented braggadocio in The Faerie Queen) to the slang of the sailors who defeated the Armada, there was, throughout English society, a new urge to use English to communicate.(It further notes,
The importance of the Renaissance to the English language was that it added between 10,000 and 12,000 new words to the lexicon.)
That's fascinating, mg:
I must consider whether to adopt your "Pardon my Low Dutch" phrase meself!
Of course, if Mrs Rhuby should swear, I could always say, "Pardon my Old Dutch", couldn't I?
The 'old' is probably best avoided, since she would obviously be feeling aggravated already, or she wouldn't be swearing.
Nah, leave it aht, John - if she's that stropped an' "old" 'ere or there don;t signify!
'Sides, "Me Dutch" don't 'ave the same ring as, "Me Ol' Dutch," nah does it?
In a brazen display of my "overuse it to death word of the week", namely, hubris, I will say that I disagree with the contention that "fuck" came from Old Dutch rather than AS. I think M-W's etymology, which lists the Dutch fokken as cognate, makes perfect sense. Given that all those stinking Huns probalby spoke similar languages, how can these pundits pontificate so pointedly that the sexy Angles stole fokken? Isn't it at least as likely that both they and the early tulpenklompenvolk had very similar words for the same rather essential function?
spoken like a Dutch uncle, sjm!
Uncle Pieter from Nether Nether Land?
Whatcha wanna bet they're cognates and there's an accepted IE word for it?
I wonder if we're looking at two different phenomena here. The first is the word fuck in its literal meaning and the other is fucking as a general intensifier. While we've probably had the former in the language since before the beginning the latter usage may have come into the language relatively recently.
some more Dutch words...
stoop ... (NY specifically, other metro areas too,) a set of
steps at the front entry way to a house or apartment building. kids would hang out, or people might sit and loiter on the stoop.
cookie is also from the dutch, it is a diminutive of the dutch word for cake. (so a cookie is a small cake)
Kill (n), a marsh land. last week there was a big fire in staten island at a transfer terminal, a gas barge caught on fire, and burned for almost 2 days.. (it was at first thought to be sabatoge, but it was quickly established to be an accident.) it occured at the Arthur's Kill harbor. there are several 'Kills" about NYC.
Trap Rock a kind of basalt that forms step like structures, such as the "devils stepping stones" (Norther Ireland) and the Palisades in NY/NJ area. Trap is the dutch for stairs (the
http://www.Engrish.com site (Japanese fractured english) has a photo of an emergency stair way labeled "Trap Exit". the first "english/japanese" dictionary (back in the 1500's) was created from a Dutch/Japanese dictionary, and some dutch words still exist in 'japanese' engrish.
coffee klatch is also a dutch term for a coffee social event. (similar to "a tea")
Sabotage--see words with an interesting etemology, below the fold.....
In reply to:
It came through French to get here, but boulevard is from the Dutch.
~Faldage
How did that come about? Directly or movin' and forth across a language boulevard?
From M-W on CD:
---------------
Etymology:French, modification of Middle Dutch bolwerc bulwark
Date:1769
sjm:
Well, slap my face and call me Sally! To think boulevard came from bulwark! Now this is an interesting bit of old news! This puts a new slant on how I'll look at the Confederate monument on Monument Avenue where Monument crosses the Boulevard!
Thanks for that bit of research.
The first is the word fuck in its literal meaning and the other is fucking as a general intensifier.
Huh? [You've got to be a "Carpal Tunnel" to get away with that without notice.]
like fucking huh, you know?
fuckin' cool...
it is so strange to write that word...
got to be a "Carpal Tunnel"
What's the problem? We discuss words, here.
Well, sometimes.
The first is the word fuck in its literal meaning and the other is fucking as a general intensifier.1 - "Fuck" has a literal meaning? How can it possibly, given its *current usage, do so?
A - General intesifier? Fuck you! It's always very specific. 'Fucking' is intense but never general.
* - OK, you did say "relatively" recently.
what the fuck?
intensifier as in adjective:
that's fucking awesome...
fuckin' A, man...
intensifier as in adjective:
I stand fucking corrected.
now you got it...
now you got it...Yep. Now I get it. This is a hi-falutin discussion of "fucking" and "fuck". Fucking clever!
Without adding the the demonstrations of the use of the two words in every sense except the original, the use of "fuck" as an intensifier clearly has no real sexual connotation and, in fact, it is used by some segments of society without regard to the fact that its use is still considered to be obscene. And when you are really angry, you intensify the intensifier by adding more of them to measure. There are lots of examples of this, but here's one I prepared earlier hailing, I am told, from that bastion of racial tolerance, Brixton:
"Shut the fuck up, you fuckin' fuck!"
Now that's mad.
But no one would dream, on hearing this, that there was any connection with the sexual at all.
But saying "Do you want to fuck?" is still completely and utterly unambiguously sexual. You couldn't construe it any other way. And probably, in most social circles, it's still completely unacceptable. At least as an invitation.
However, there are many more subtle ways of getting the question across without causing quite as much offence. You can take another approach, accredited to the Australian male as the normal approach to foreplay in the marriage bed, which consists of an action and a question, each on their own unexceptional, but together ...
The typical male will, if desirous of consummation, nudge his sweetheart and ask "You awake?"
- Pfranz
I imagine that this is not, of course, true for the New Zealand male who has probably more of the subtle approach that we Europeans adopt. You know, fine wine, soft lights and music followed by a sensitively tactile exploration of the situation.
Hell no. Why do you think that there's only 4 million of us? They need to give lessons ...
- Pfranz
They need to give lessons ...
... or *you just sleep less.
GEEZ, you guys!!
I do recall a mechanic who taught me how to fix cars in my youth saying one cold night that "the fucking fucker's fucking fucked", which provides a useful starting point from which to identify the various parts of speech (noun, adj., v., adv., etc)...
jj
Jackie,
I think you've got your application of 'low-falutin'' well and running here on this thread.
WW
Yep, right down there in the gutter!
We having a party down here in the gutter? HeeHa!
