Means "messed up," more or less.
I have a dictionary that says it comes from Middle French "descheveler" which comes from Latin "des" (away) + "chevel" (hair), and "chevel" is supposed to come from Latin "capillus" (no definition given).
Well, I don't have an OED handy, so I can't check it to be sure, but I really have my doubts about the above.
My theory:
There is a French term "en deshabille" (in undress) that refers to how you look when you're at ease at home--think of the woman in her bathrobe, hair in curlers, sloppy slippers on feet--now if that doesn't fit "disheveled" to your mind, what does?
So, my theory is that "en deshabille" was corrupted into "disheveled" by those English speakers who don't bother to try to pronounce things properly.
And I don't care what my dictionary thinks.
What confuses me is that my dictionary gives the root of paternal as being the Latin 'pater' but in fact the ancient Greeks, hundreds of years earlier used 'pater' as father and 'mater' as mother.
[This message has been edited by Gwalchmai (edited January 23, 2004).]
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But then 'en deshabille' probably came in turn from descheveler or the Latin.
That would make sense, Gwalchmai, except that "habille" has to do with clothing in French. The "des" (away) part from Latin works, though.
Not so sure on the dictionary thing though. I mean if they can go back to Ancient Greek for medical terms then it's only right that they should do it for other words too. But then, I suppose, I could argue that they trace everything back to its Phoenician routes and that would just be silly. Maybe it makes sense to stop somewhere. It's just the fact that the words are exactly the same that gets me.
[This message has been edited by Gwalchmai (edited January 23, 2004).]
The c in the Middle English version makes this route more likely than the "en deshabille" route.
Of course, that's assuming the American Heritage Dictionary is correct about the Middle English step, which does not appear in the Webster's etymology.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=disheveled
). Cincinnatus is an imposing figure nonetheless. For all the hype about him and his exploits, though, his name (according to the postcard) means "one whose hair is curled, especially in an artificial way." Don't you love it?
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To "decimate," for instance, originally meant to kill every tenth person as a collective punishment (hence the old joke about how "You can tell the ancient Romans were tough -- in their language, 'to kill every tenth person as a collective punishment' was one word").
http://volokh.com/2002_11_17_volokh_archive.html#85689368
Literally translated, that means "to cross the street against the red light."
Jaywalking.
Anyone know of other words that (either to or from English) do not have a simple translation?
)amorgar -- to stupefy fish with coco
caniculario -- a beadle who drags dogs out of church
anarangear -- (my favorite) -- to kill a hen by throwing oranges at it
otashi-bumi -- a letter purposely dropped on the road
tsujigira -- a trying out of one's sword on a chance bypasser
What is the perfect tense of "wake?"
What I found out is that there are actually four parallel verbs:
They can all function as transitive verbs (I wake my son every morning for school) or as intransitive verbs (I awake at six o'clock).
So "have woken," "have awakened," "have waked," and "have awoken" are all equally correct.
*gets dizzy*
Caniculario looks like it might be Latin-derived (canis = dog), and my dictionary says that Sirius, the dog star is also known as Canicula. (It says Sirius is from the Greek "seirios" for hot, scorching--referring, I'd guess, to the "dog days" or hot days of summer.)
Otashi-burni and tsujigira look like they are Japanese. No ideas about the other two.
amorgar - obviously an amalgamation of the words amour (contracted to amor) and gar. Amour - from middle English via old French, meaning a love affair. Gar - the name of a type of fish.
Therefore amorgar - a love affair with a garfish.
Anarangear - this just has to be of Scottish origin. The Isle of Arran is a Scottish island and the name has obviously been contracted here to aran.
Hence an-aran-gear. Stuff belonging to a person from the Isle of Arran.
These definitions are most definitely correct because I have been in contact with the world renowned etymologist Lord A.Wobbish and he told me so.
When I started studying Russian, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my knowledge of French was very helpful (until I got further along with verbs and hadn't studied German which has a case system which would have helped apparently). French was "de rigeur" at the Russian court (Peter the Great did this I believe?) - a great respect for French - I have loved discovering such relationships.
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a is the Hawaiian word for "trigger fish" and is the state fish. It is a really small fish of multiple colors - about 6-8 inches. I always found it funny!
) It had to do with concerns about digestion, which they considered quite important. [This message has been edited by Kolona (edited January 27, 2004).]
We like "kaukau pipi pupu" - eat beef hors d'oeuvres - pidgin Hawaiian mix, but induces many giggles.
"The Hawaiian language is considered by linguists to be one of the most fluid and melodious languages of the world. Only 12 letters appear in the Hawaiian alphabet. There are 5 vowels - A, E, I, O, U. And, there are only 7 consonants: H, K, L, M, N, P and W. Every word in the Hawaiian language ends with a vowel and a vowel always appears between consonants; some words contain no consonants at all." (like the place name Aiea)
From "Say It As It Is! Learn To Speak Hawaiian" written by MeneHune, who was the same person as the editor, Valjeanne Budar, my aunt!
I used to joke that Welsh took most of the consonants, and Hawaiian took most of the vowels.
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited January 27, 2004).]
"Sounds of consonants in Hawaiian closely resemble the sounds of English consonants, with one exception, the W. The letter W is pronounced in English when it follows O or U and as a soft V when it follows E or I. When W follows A or is the first letter in the word - the choice is yours to make."
"Vowels in Hawaiian are pure vowels. In Hawaiian there are 2 sounds in each vowel, one of long, and the other of short duration. An example of this is the difference between the words 'pull' and 'pool' - there are also glottal stops and many double vowel sounds, as you can imagine with a language so rich in vowels.
I believe Hawaiian became the first "aboriginal" language one could get a doctorate in, but I forget where I learned that.
Kolona - I am still laughing over your milk reference! We teased friends over prounouncing "Pipeline" peepayleenay, and the Likelike Hwy as "like-like" as opposed to the proper way - "leekayleekay" - haha! I remember, after living in France, coming home, and was convinced that "book" was not the english word for "livre" because it sounded so wrong...
[This message has been edited by punahougirl84 (edited January 27, 2004).]
[This message has been edited by punahougirl84 (edited January 27, 2004).]
)
quote:The OED also says that it's from dis + cheval. But it says something else interesting:
So, my theory is that "en deshabille" was corrupted into "disheveled" by those English speakers who don't bother to try to pronounce things properly.
quote:So it probably started out simply meaning "having messy hair" and then took on a broader meaning, absorbing the meaning of "deshabille." A similar meaning shift happened with the English word "unkempt" (which is a variation of the word "uncombed").
Without coif or head-dress; hence, with the hair unconfined and flung about in disorder. Sometimes app. in wider sense: Undressed, in dishabille.
quote:It's a common Indo-European word, not a borrowing from Greek to Latin. The English word "father" goes back to the same Indo-European root.
What confuses me is that my dictionary gives the root of paternal as being the Latin 'pater' but in fact the ancient Greeks, hundreds of years earlier used 'pater' as father and 'mater' as mother.
[This message has been edited by Jon Boy (edited January 28, 2004).]
Chinese, Korean, and Japanese all furnish good examples (though more often the sounds occur as finals rather than initials). But really, every spoken language (excepting dead languages that are not learned by children) furnishes examples.
Swear words are just tricky because the type and frequency of their usage differs in Spanish at least as much as it does in English. The only way I got any good handle on them was taking a Contemporary Latin American Literature class when I was in college (conducted completely in spanish). I had learn a ton of swear words because of the "wonderful" (not) tendency for contemporary authors to feel that if folks don't swear all over the place, then the novel doesn't reflect reality. If you hadn't guesed, this is one of my pet beefs with a lot of "contemporary" literature.
If you need more ideas, let me know the situation and regional variance you are looking for and I'll try to help.
Dave
[This message has been edited by Ergoface (edited January 31, 2004).]
PE Sharp
(I know picking Spanish with no knowledge of the language was a bad idea but his character suited the nationality and there's nothing like a good piece of stereotyping every now and then)
[This message has been edited by Gwalchmai (edited February 02, 2004).]
Or Korean, for that matter?
Grrrrrr...
GRRRRRR!
Jon Boy, Survivor told you Chinese, Japanese and Korean have examples, but you only thought it was cool when PE Sharp gave you an actual example (Thai).
KDW just doesn't approve of fun 
Which reminds me, Survivor. Are you going to the BYU SF Symposium next week?
I figured that Survivor was growling because of that, but I still don't quite understand why. Did I really upset you for not saying, "Cool, thanks Survivor"?
Yeah, I actually live in walking distance of the BYU campus, so I'll likely be there.:more sighing:
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING, the BYU Science Fiction Symposium, will be held on February 19-21 (at BYU, of course). More information is at
I can tell you what I'm supposed to be doing, and when I'm supposed to be doing it--according to the current version of the schedule, if you like.
One of the things I'm doing I call "Lucky 13 workshops" where people bring copies of 13 lines of either a hook, a plot summary, or a description, and the others critique it--we can do five people in an hour.
As you may have guessed, they're based on what people do in the Fragments and Feedback area here (although it has been brought to my attention that lately the 13 lines are getting more critiques and not so many volunteers to read the whole thing, the way they are supposed to).
Anyway, I'm doing one of those on Friday and one on Saturday, and people need to come in on Thursday to sign up for them.
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Yeah, I actually live in walking distance of the BYU campus, so I'll likely be there.:more sighing:
Survivor, were you the one who got into the yelling match with the feminazi about nature vs. nurture last year at LTUE? I was just looking at your website, and your face seemed familiar . . .
I don't even know why I would have been talking to a feminazi, though...let alone engaging in competitive yelling.
Some guy (who I remember looking like you) started suggesting that this might not be entirely true, and she started yelling and turning red, and then he started talking louder to be heard, and finally she screamed, "We don't have time to talk about this now!" (probably because she knew she had no argument), and continued on her soapbox.
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Quick question.
Does anybody know any proper curses and insults in Spanish? Don't know anything about the language myself but what I'm after is pretty tame. Something like their equivalent to fool, imbecile or damn etc.
Tu es loco in la cabasa? You are crazy in the head 
Not sure on the spelling *chuckle*
Ever think about the word aloof?
ALOOF? No, I don't have the time.
P.S. thank you for your suggestion RillSoji. Came at about the right time bizarrely enough. Will get the spelling checked though.