Ex uno plures

[muckefuck]

One of my favourite examples of both the commonalities and divergences between the modern Romance languages:

Catalan: llevataps
Spanish: sacacorchos
Portuguese: saca-rolhas
French: tire-bouchon
Italian: cavatappi

All five terms mean the same thing: corkscrew. All five are compounds formed in the same way: finite verb + noun, lit. "it removes corks/caps/plugs". But the actual words are different in each case. Spanish and Portuguese agree on the verb (sacar "take out"), but differ when it comes to the corks. Italian and Catalan agree on what to call the corks (while disagreeing on what the plurals should be), but use different words for removing them (cavare "take out" vs. llevar "lift"). And the French are never happy unless they're doing everything their own way. Not only do they use completely different words for both "take out" and "cork", but they don't put the second in the plural like everyone else. So whereas the other words are invariable, tire-bouchon has the plural tire-bouchons. Of course, since final <s> is silent in French anyway, it ends up being a distinction without a difference. (C'est tout typique, non?)

("What about Romanian?" I hear you ask. Ever the copycat, they don't have their own word. They just borrow the French, make one or two orthographic adjustments, and say tirbuşon. Slackers.)

Update #1: And my darlings, the Friulians, just don't know which way to go. Do they want to lamely copy the French, like their kin to the northeast, and use tirebusson? Or do they want their own impenetrable little compound, ğhavestropuj? (From ğhavâ, a cognate to Italian cavare even if it doesn't look it, and the plural of stropul, whose affiliations are anyone's guess.)

Update #2: And what of those precious little Rumontsches? Could they possibly have a different term for each standard dialect in their little canton?

Sursilvan: tilastappuns
Sutsilvan: tiraclacùns
Surmiran: teiracucungs
Puter: tiracucuns
Vallader: tiracucuns

Ah, so close, little dudes, but no cigar! (What is this with Vallader piggybacking on Puter all the time?) The newish unified standard, Rumantsch Grischun, figures that two out of five is as good as it gets and goes with tiracucuns.

Update #3: Occitan, forever balancing your French heart with your Catalan limbs. Tira-tap. Verb from the former, noun from the latter (but singular, as in French).

Update #4: In Il pendolo di Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum), Belbo introduces the other principles to the Piedmontese expression "Ma gavte la nata" or "Be so kind as to remove the cork." Does this mean that the locals would call a corkscrew at gavanate?

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Not at all. If those are cognates, how do you explain the appearance of /s/ and /r/ in the Friulian form?

The Friulian cognate of Italian tappo is simply tap, but the meaning is "wedge, notch" rather than "cap".

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Could've fooled me. I think I'll start calling cavatappi pasta "cava-stroppy"--

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

If you allow that degree of laxitude, you're going to be flooded with false hits.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Just building an idiolect, buddy.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I meant about the phonetic matches when you're trying to determine word relationships. If two consonants in common is enough, well then, that really opens the door.

When it comes to what you call your pasta in the privacy of your own home, I have no right to an opinion.

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

Leave those friulani alone. They were Austrian for a while, and even now some of them are Slovenian.

BTW, my favorite-named kitchen tool is a cavatutti a deep wire basket with a handle, perfect for lifting things out of liguids.

The French do not use corkscrews exclusivey. There's that silly thing with two curved/flat strips that Frenchmen insist work beautifully when you know they just want to emphasize their distinctively different nature. Tirez le bouchon, sucka!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The best parts of Italy were all Austrian for a while. (Don't let my half-Neapolitan sister-in-law know I said that.) Friuli was Venetian for even longer, which also counts for an awful lot in my book.

When I was a child, I was a cavatutti. Just ask my mother about the incident with the sandwich bags.

That silly French thing you're talking about, is it what cpratt is calling an "Ah-So" and what the website calls a "corkpull"? I think I may have gotten one of those to work exactly once in my life.