Aug. 14th, 2008

muckefuck: (Default)
At the risk of undoing my dogged efforts to convince everyone that Irish orthography is better than its reputation, I simply must share a wonderful word that I only discovered last night: neamhthaibhseach. My dictionary glosses it as "unostentatious", but Ó Cuív prefers the more unostentatious equivalent "small". (The online dictionary unexpectedly gives "sober", presumably in the sense of "understated" rather than "not pissed".) The root is taibhse "great size", so a more literal gloss would be "unsizable".

What amuses me most is that Ó Cuív gives the Muskerry pronunciation as /nʲafiʃəx/, which works out to 16 letters representing seven phonemes. Even better, the pre-reform spelling included a de rigueur silent dh wedged in there before the bh, bringing the total to 18 letters. The crowning touch, however, is that the pronunciation isn't in the least predictable from that of its components, which are normally neamh- /nʲa-/ and taibhse /təiʃi/.
muckefuck: (Default)
I couldn't help but notice that most of you haven't responded to my impromptu "bergamot" quiz. I understand that free response questions can be a little intimidating, so I'll make this multiple choice. "Bergamot" refers to:
A. A kind of citrus.
B. A kind of pear.
C. A kind of mint.
D. A native American herb.
And the answer is:No peeking! )
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