By: Monica Gupta,
on 8/31/2016
Waterlogging in Delhi due to heavy rains Cartoon – Heavy rain in Delhi caused traffic jam पिछ्ले दिनों गुडगांव में भयंंकर ट्रैफिक जाम हुआ था और आज भारी बारिश के चलते दिल्ली ही मानो डूब गई. चारो तरफ पानी ही पानी नजर आ रहा था और रेंगते हुए वाहन !! वही अमेरिका से आए US Secy […]
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By: Monica Gupta,
on 7/29/2016
ऐतिहासिक सड़क जाम कुछ समय पर गुडगांव नाम परिवर्तन के लिए सुर्खियों मे रहा था और आज एतिहासिक जाम के लिए गुरुग्राम ने सुर्खिया बटोरी. ट्विटर यूजर्स ने फोटो पोस्ट करते हुए लिखा कि एक दिन में गुड़गांव वेनिस बन गया. गुड़गांव में शाम 4 बजे के आसपास तेज बारिश के बाद भयंकर और एतिहासिक […]
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By: Monica Gupta,
on 7/28/2015
सोना सस्ता
इन दिनों दो खबरें एक साथ सुनने को मिल रही हैं पहली तो ये कि सोना हुआ सस्ता और दूसरी ये कि सब्जी हुई महंगी अब ऐसे मे ये श्रीमती जी अपने पति से क्या बतिया रही है जरा देखिए तो …
IBN Khabar
नई दिल्ली। विदेशों में बहुमूल्य धातुओं की कीमतों में मजबूती के रुख के बावजूद मौजूदा स्तर पर आभूषण विक्रेताओं और फुटकर विक्रेताओं की मांग घटने से राष्ट्रीय राजधानी दिल्ली के सर्राफा बाजार में आज सोने की कीमत 190 रुपए की गिरावट के साथ 25,300 रुपए प्रति 10 ग्राम रह गई। इस तरह दो दिन से जारी तेजी का सिलसिला थम गया।
औद्योगिक इकाइयों और सिक्का निर्माताओं के कमजोर उठान के कारण चांदी की कीमत भी 150 रुपए की गिरावट के साथ 34,050 रुपए प्रति किलोग्राम पर बंद हुई। सर्राफा व्यापारियों ने कहा कि मौजूदा स्तर पर आभूषण और फुटकर विक्रेताओं की मांग घटने के कारण मुख्यत: बहुमूल्य धातुओं की कीमतों में गिरावट आई, लेकिन वैश्विक बाजार में मामूली रूप से बेहतर रख ने गिरावट पर कुछ अंकुश लगा दिया।
निवेशकों को यह लगा कि फेडरल रिजर्व लंबे समय के लिए ब्याज दरों को कम रखेगा जिससे वैश्विक स्तर पर सिंगापुर में सोने का भाव 0.4 प्रतिशत की तेजी के साथ 1,097.99 डॉलर प्रति औंस हो गया। चांदी का भाव भी 0.6 प्रतिशत की तेजी के साथ 14.64 डॉलर प्रति औंस हो गया। राष्ट्रीय राजधानी दिल्ली में सोना 99.9 और 99.5 प्रतिशत शुद्धता की कीमत क्रमश: 190 .190 रुपए की गिरावट के साथ क्रमश: 25,300 रुपए और 25,150 रुपए प्रति 10 ग्राम पर बंद हुई।
पिछले दो सत्रों में सोना 440 रपये चढ़ा था। गिन्नी की कीमत भी 200 रुपए की गिरावट के साथ 22,200 रपये प्रति आठ ग्राम पर बंद हुई। सोने की ही तरह चांदी तैयार की कीमत 150 रुपए की गिरावट के साथ 34,050 रपये प्रति किलोग्राम पर बंद हुई। जबकि चांदी साप्ताहिक डिलीवरी के भाव 120 रुपए की गिरावट दर्शाते 33,765 रुपए प्रति किलोग्राम पर बंद हुए। चांदी सिक्कों के भाव 1,000 रुपए की गिरावट के साथ लिवाल 49,000 रुपए और बिकवाल 50,000 रुपए प्रति सैकड़ा पर बंद हुए। See more…
IBN Khabar
नई दिल्ली। लगातार हो रही बारिश के चलते सब्जियों के दाम आसमान पर पहुंच गए हैं। लोगों की थाली से सब्जियां गायब होती जा रही हैं। व्यापारियों के मुताबिक प्याज, आलू, टमाटर और हरी सब्जियों की थोक कीमतों में 10 से 20 फीसदी तक का इजाफा हुआ है जबकि खुदरा बाजार में इन सब्जियों की कीमत 50 से डेढ़ सौ फीसदी तक बढ़ चुकी है।
देश में हो रही भारी बारिश से सब्जियों की फसल बर्बाद हो चुकी हैं जिसके चलते कीमतों में आग लगी हुई है। आलू 20 रुपए, प्याज 40 रुपए, टमाटर 53 रुपए प्रति किलो तक पहुंचा चुका है। वहीं भिंडी 40 रुपए, गोभी 98 रुपए, लौकी और बैंगन 70 रुपए जबकि खीरा 42 रुपए प्रति किलो बिक रहा है। Read more…
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By: Alice,
on 7/30/2014
Since I’ll be out of town at the end of July, I was not sure I would be able to write these “gleanings.” But the questions have been many, and I could answer some of them ahead of time.
Autumn: its etymology
Our correspondent wonders whether the Latin word from which English, via French, has autumn, could be identified with the name of the Egyptian god Autun. The Romans derived the word autumnus, which was both an adjective (“autumnal”) and a noun (“autumn”), from augere “to increase.” This verb’s perfect participle is auctus “rich (“autumn as a rich season”). The Roman derivation, though not implausible, looks like a tribute to folk etymology. A more serious conjecture allies autumn to the Germanic root aud-, as in Gothic aud-ags “blessed” (in the related languages, also “rich”). But, more probably, Latin autumnus goes back to Etruscan. The main argument for the Etruscan origin is the resemblance of autumnus to Vertumnus, the name of a seasonal deity (or so it seems), about whom little is known besides the tale of his seduction, in the shape of an old woman, of Pomona, as told by Ovid. Vertumnus, or Vortumnus, may be a Latinized form of an Etruscan name. A definite conclusion about autumnus is hardly possible, even though some sources, while tracing this word to Etruscan, add “without doubt.” The Egyptian Autun was a creation god and the god of the setting sun, so that his connection with autumn is remote at best. Nor do we have any evidence that Autun had a cult in Ancient Rome. Everything is so uncertain here that the origin of autumnus must needs remain unknown. In my opinion, the Egyptian hypothesis holds out little promise.
Vertumnus seducing Pomona in the shape of an old woman. (Pomona by Frans de Vriendt “Floris” (Konstnär, 1518-1570) Antwerpen, Belgien, Hallwyl Museum, Photo by Jens Mohr, via Wikimedia Commons)
The origin of so long
I received an interesting letter from Mr. Paul Nance. He writes about so long:
“It seems the kind of expression that should have derived from some fuller social nicety, such as I regret that it will be so long before we meet again or the like, but no one has proposed a clear antecedent. An oddity is its sudden appearance in the early nineteenth century; there are only a handful of sightings before Walt Whitman’s use of it in a poem (including the title) in the 1860-1861 edition of Leaves of Grass. I can, by the way, offer an antedating to the OED citations: so, good bye, so long in the story ‘Cruise of a Guinean Man’. Knickerbocker: New York (Monthly Magazine 5, February 1835, p. 105; available on Google Books). Given the lack of a fuller antecedent, suggestions as to its origin all propose a borrowing from another language. Does this seem reasonable to you?”
Mr. Nance was kind enough to append two articles (by Alan S. Kaye and Joachim Grzega) on so long, both of which I had in my folders but have not reread since 2004 and 2005, when I found and copied them. Grzega’s contribution is especially detailed. My database contains only one more tiny comment on so long by Frank Penny: “About twenty years ago I was informed that it [the expression so long] is allied to Samuel Pepys’s expression so home, and should be written so along or so ’long, meaning that the person using the expression must go his way” (Notes and Queries, Series 12, vol. IX, 1921, p. 419). The group so home does turn up in the Diary more than once, but no citation I could find looks like a formula. Perhaps Stephen Goranson will ferret it out. In any case, so long looks like an Americanism, and it is unlikely that such a popular phrase should have remained dormant in texts for almost two centuries.
Be that as it may, I agree with Mr. Nance that a formula of this type probably arose in civil conversation. The numerous attempts to find a foreign source for it carry little conviction. Norwegian does have an almost identical phrase, but, since its antecedents are unknown, it may have been borrowed from English. I suspect (a favorite turn of speech by old etymologists) that so long is indeed a curtailed version of a once more comprehensible parting formula, unless it belongs with the likes of for auld lang sine. It may have been brought to the New World from England or Scotland and later abbreviated and reinterpreted.
“Heavy rain” in languages other than English
Once I wrote a post titled “When it rains, it does not necessarily pour.” There I mentioned many German and Swedish idioms like it is raining cats and dogs, and, rather than recycling that text, will refer our old correspondent Mr. John Larsson to it.
Ukraine and Baltic place names
The comment on this matter was welcome. In my response, I preferred not to talk about the things alien to me, but I wondered whether the Latvian place name could be of Slavic origin. That is why I said cautiously: “If this is a native Latvian word…” The question, as I understand, remains unanswered, but the suggestion is tempting. And yes, of course, Serb/Croat Krajna is an exact counterpart of Ukraina, only without a prefix. In Russian, stress falls on i; in Ukrainian, I think, the first a is stressed. The same holds for the derived adjectives: ukrainskii ~ ukrainskii. Pushkin said ukrainskaia (feminine).
Slough, sloo, and the rest
Many thanks to those who informed me about their pronunciation of slough “mire.” It was new to me that the surname Slough is pronounced differently in England and the United States. I also received a question about the history of slew. The past tense of slay (Old Engl. slahan) was sloh (with a long vowel), and this form developed like scoh “shoe,” though the verb vacillated between the 6th and the 7th class. The fact that slew and shoe have such dissimilar written forms is due to the vagaries of English spelling. One can think of too, who, you, group, fruit, cruise, rheum, truth, and true, which have the same vowel as slew. In addition, consider Bruin and ruin, which look deceptively like fruit, and add manoeuver for good measure. A mild spelling reform looks like a good idea, doesn’t it?
The pronunciation of February
In one of the letters I received, the writer expresses her indignation that some people insist on sounding the first r in February. Everybody, she asserts, says Febyooary. In such matters, everybody is a dangerous word (as we will also see from the next item). All of us tend to think that what we say is the only correct norm. Words with the succession r…r tend to lose one of them. Yet library is more often pronounced with both, and Drury, brewery, and prurient have withstood the tendency. February has changed its form many times. Thus, long ago feverer (from Old French) became feverel (possibly under the influence of averel “April”). In the older language of New England, January and February turned into Janry and Febry. However powerful the phonetic forces may have been in affecting the pronunciation of February, of great importance was also the fact that the names of the months often occur in enumeration. Without the first r, January and February rhyme. A similar situation is well-known from the etymology of some numerals. Although the pronunciation Febyooary is equally common on both sides of the Atlantic and is recognized as standard throughout the English-speaking world, not “everybody” has accepted it. The consonant b in February is due to the Latinization of the French etymon (late Latin februarius).
Who versus whom
Discussion of these pronouns lost all interest long ago, because the confusion of who and whom and the defeat of whom in American English go back to old days. Yet I am not sure that what I said about the educated norm is “nonsense.” Who will marry our son? Whom will our son marry? Is it “nonsense” to distinguish them, and should (or only can) it be who in both cases? Despite the rebuke, I believe that even in Modern American English the woman who we visited won’t suffer if who is replaced with whom. But, unlike my opponent, I admit that tastes differ.
Wrap
Another question I received was about the origin of the verb wrap. This is a rather long story, and I decided to devote a special post to it in the foreseeable future.
PS. I notice that of the two questions asked by our correspondent last month only copacetic attracted some attention (read Stephen Goranson’s response). But what about hubba hubba?
Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears on the OUPblog each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to him care of [email protected]; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.” Subscribe to Anatoly Liberman’s weekly etymology articles via email or RSS.
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