Safari
Not surprisingly, this is an African loanword. It comes from Swahili. In Swahili, it just means ‘journey’, not being restricted to excursions where you go and see wildlife. It may be difficult for us to imagine someone referring to a trip from London to Bristol or from Cologne to Brussels as a safari, but that is how it is used in Swahili.
Sandwich
A wonderful word to illustrate German speakers’ difficulties pronouncing English. What makes it more difficult is that speakers think it can’t be difficult. After all, it is the same in German, isn’t it? No. It isn’t. There are at least three differences: the /w/ is often realised as /v/ by German speakers, but this admittedly is rather the stereotypical Kraut of English comedies. But that leaves another two problems. The vowel /æ/, which has no counterpart in German, is often realised as /e/ by German speakers. This can also be observed in a recent advertisement in Germany for American pancakes, which rather sound like pencakes. But to return to the sandwich. The next problem is that /d/, as is the case in German, is devoiced at the end of the syllable and becomes /t/. So in the worst case scenario, sandwich would sound like sentvich. But let us assume an advanced learner has overcome all these difficulties. It may still not sound very English. First, there is usually elision of /d/ in sandwich in English; it is not pronounced at all. And if it is, it becomes, oddly, aligned more to the second than to the first syllable, giving something like san – dwich. Similarly, pick-up. The phonological boundary line is not the same as the morphological boundary line, but /k/ is aligned to the second syllable, so that it sounds like cup rather than up.
See-saw
The two /s/-sounds in see-saw usually have quite different lip shapes. You can easily observe this in a mirror. In the first, the lips are spread, in the second, the lips are rounded, just as they are in the following vowels. This is an example of assimilation, the change of a sound under the influence of a neighbouring sound (cf. Roach 2001: 56).
Sensuous
The word sensuous was actually invented by Milton, because he was not happy with sensual. Originally, sensual was a neutral word which meant ‘referring to the senses’, but it had become pejorative and meant something like ‘lustful’. In spite of Milton, today sensuous and sensual are often confused and used as synonyms, usually in the ‘bad’ sense. It looks as if people were more interested in this kind of thing. Poor Milton would have to invent yet another new word. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 176-7)
Service
The service left much to be desired. The word service has a number of different meanings. Which of them is appropriate is this context is impossible to know. As soon as other words are added to the sentence, they may trigger of certain associations and make us invisage a particular context, activate what is called a schema: The service last Sunday left much to be desired. This could trigger off the church schema and make us think of a church service, but our expectations may turn out to be wrong: The service last Sunday left much to be desired. Most of the staff had taken the day off, and we had to wait ages between courses. Besides the church and the restaurant schema, a sports schema could also be activated: The service last Sunday left much to be desired. So we lost the match. The meaning is not in the text itself. It is in the mind of the speaker, and changes with the context. (Widdowson 2007: 29-30)
Sex and crime
“I can’t even imagine that there are any Latin words in English at all”, a student, visibly flabbergasted, once exclaimed in class when we were discussing foreign loanwords. Probably the student was looking for a word which looked and sounded Latin, something like ancilla or ubi or adque. The problem is that foreign loans have a way of hiding their identity and are not so easily recognisable as foreigners. Not many people, when talking about sex and crime, probably realise they are using loanwords. Both of them are Latin in origin. And as for the real Latin words quoted at the beginning, ancilla has given rise to English ancillary, and ubi to ubiquitous.
She won’t go out with anyone
This sentence can have two clearly different meanings. Either she will go out with no one, or she is very careful who she goes out with, she does not go out with anyone who just happens to come her way. The difference is mainly conveyed through intonation, with a falling pitch movement on anyone in the first case, and a falling-rising pitch movement in the second case. (Roach 2001: 33-4)
Shirt and skirt
In may cases, it is difficult to say if a word was introduced by the Anglo-Saxons or the Scandinavians. After all, both spoke Germanic languages. A good hint is the occurrence of /sk/ in a word. In Old English, /sk/ had changed into /S/, but in the Scandinavian languages this change had not taken place. Thus words such as sky, skin, scrape, bask and skirt are of Scandinavian origin, whereas ship, shall, fish and shirt had entered English earlier. (Jucker 2000: 24)
Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday is the name for the last day of the Carnival Season, the last day before Lent. Shrove is the Past Tense form of the verb shrive, which means ‘hear confession’. In the olden days, people first used to go to confess their sins and then made merry with sports and feasting – and sin again? The corresponding noun is shrift, and if you are given short shrift, you are immediately told that you are wrong and that you are not given any sympathy or attention: “McLaren hot short shrift from all the record companies when he presented his new band to them”. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2000: 169)
Shuttle
This is a well-known word. Most people would think of space-shuttle or a bus-shuttle nowadays, but the original meaning was quite different. It was an instrument used in weaving (German Schiffchen), and as such it often occurs in fairy tales, e.g. in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The spindle, the needle and the shuttle”. It is interesting to notice that today when weaving is no longer of importance in everyday life, this meaning, the original one, has been relegated to third place in the dictionary, being preceded by “space shuttle” and “bus shuttle”. The common idea which connects the three meanings is, of course, something moving up and down quickly and regularly.
Sideburns
What connection can there possibly be between an American general of Civil War times and the English language? Well, the general’s claim to fame lies mainly in his beard, to be precise in his whiskers. He sported thick side-whiskers which connected with his moustache, leaving his chin clean at the same time. This style strangely became all the rage in America and elsewhere. The general’s name was Burnsides, and burnsides was the name originally given to this style. Then, because the hair was on the side of the face, people were not happy with the word any more and changed it into sideburns – its modern form. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 251-2)
Silly
The word, although this may come as a surprise, is related to German selig. In Old English, it meant ‘happy’ or ‘pious’, in Middle English ‘innocent’ or ‘harmless’. It was often used to express compassion for people suffering undeservedly, and then in general to those who deserve sympathy. Thus is came to mean ‘foolish’ or ‘stupid’. This is an example of a word whose meaning has degenerated. (Jucker 2000: 120)
Skyscraper
The word was around before tall buildings appeared on the scene, and it was used to refer to a tall sail, a tall person, a tall horse and a hat with a high crown! (Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 264-5)
Skin
Where German has Haut, English has skin. But English also has hide, much closer to the German word. Words like skin, which contain /sk/, are typical Scandinavian loanwords: sky, skill, skirt, skin. When the Scandinavian loanwords entered English, they sometimes just replaced the Old English word, as in the case of egg (for ey). Sometimes the Old English word survived, and the Scandinavian word disappeared. And sometimes both words survived. This is the case with skin and hide. Quite “naturally”, the two words would then develop a difference in meaning to make their survival worthwhile. Other such pairs include dike and ditch, skill and craft, skirt and shirt, raise and rise. (Crystal 1995: 26).
Slang
The word slang comes up constantly and inappropriately when discussing language. It is used to refer to anything which is felt to be a deviation from what one knows or what one is used to. When Lifehack.org suggested “30 British slang terms one should start using immediately”, the list included fortnight and car park! However, these are perfeclty normal words, not marekd in any way. Slang, however, only suits very casual contexts, and much slang is only used by the young. (Murphy 2018: 38)
Sleepless nights
We usually associate rhetorical figures with literature. This makes us underestimate how much rhetorical figures are also a part of everyday language. Hardly anyone notices that there is something rhetorically noticeable in phrases such as “a happy day” or “sleepless nights”. Yet this is a clear shift from the “normal” order of things: it is not the nights which are sleepless but the people who cannot find sleep. This kind of “wrong” reference is known as hypallage in rhetorics and is often found in Shakespeare, for example. A literary example is this from T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land: “Winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow.” It is not the snow, of course, which is forgetful, but the snow covers the earth and makes us forget temporarily what the earth is like.
Snuck
Traditionally, sneaked has been the Past Tense form of sneak. But English speakers increasingly say and write snuck. Languages change, and what is right for one generation may be wrong for the next generation. (Finegan 52008: 26)
Some
Anyone who says “I have picked some flowers” will be understood to have picked two flowers at least. They could have been flowers of two different kinds, say gladioli and dahlias, these plus some lilies etc. Alternatively, they could also have been all of the same kind, all lilies, all dahlias, etc. This difference is clear and objective. And yet some flowers would be equally appropriate in either case. This means that speakers of English, and other languages like it, are obliged to distinguish ‘one’ from ‘more than one’, but not ‘one sort’ from ‘more than one sort’. Why should this be the case? Is it communicatively more important to distinguish ‘one’ from ‘more than one’? But then there are certainly languages in which this distinction does not have to be made, and other languages which distinguish a set of members which are different form each other from a set of members which are all of the same kind. In the end, is it pure chance that we happen to speak a language in which one distinction is made and the other isn’t? (Matthews 2003: 64-5)
Spaghetti
There are fixed-stressed languages and there are languages which are not. English isn’t. Scots Gaelic is, and so is Swahili. In Scots Gaelic, the stress is always (or virtually always) on the first syllable, in Swahili on the penultimate. Nevertheless, there are stress ‘rules’ in English, rules with many exceptions. One rule says that nouns should be stressed on the antepenultimate syllable if there is a short vowel in the last syllable (and on the penultimate if not). Against this rule, spaghetti is stressed on the penultimate syllable, the second from behind, although it out to be stressed on the antepenultimate, the third from behind (and in this case the first). It has retained the stress pattern of Italian, the language it was borrowed from. (McMahon 2002: 119-21)
Spice candle
Is the word spice candle (used to refer to a candle which burns aromatically), pronounced the same as spy scandal? The answer is a clear “Yes and No” ( Davis 2004: 81). The phoneme sequence is exactly the same, i.e. phonologically they are the same. On the phonetic level, however, they are different in various ways:
(1) The vowel of spice is shorter because it occurs in a closed syllable.
(2) The /s/ at the end of spice will be said rather weakly as the syllable is dying away at that point, whereas the /s/ of scandal is rather strong. The former is a waxing /s/, the latter a waning /s/.
(3) The /k/ of candle is aspirated, the /k/ of scandal is not because it does not occur alone but is preceded by /s/.
Spill, still, skill
Take a piece of paper and hold it up in front of your mouth by the bottom of the sheet, so the top is free to flap about. Now say pill, till, kill. You will find a little puff of air is released after the first sounds, after /p/ and /t/ and /k/, making the paper move slightly. This puff of air is called aspiration. Now repeat the same exercise saying spill, still, skill. You will find that there is no discernible movement. The sounds are not aspirated this time. So here we have, in all three cases, two different allophones, an aspirated one and a non-aspirated one, of one and the same phoneme. Most speakers are not even aware of the difference, although the difference is clearly noticeable. They are not aware of it because it does not ‘matter’, i.e. it does not affect the meaning of the word even if you get your allophones ‘wrong’. It would just sound a bit odd. (McMahon 2002: 18)
Starve
The word is related to German sterben, although it does not mean the same. But it did. In Old English, steorfan meant ‘die’, but later it ‘specialised’, so to speak, to refer only to a certain kind of death, and then it narrowed down even further (Jucker 2000: 119). The next step would be to use the word if you suffer from hunger but do not die as a consequence. Today, if you say “I am starving” you mean no more than to say you’re hungry.
Steal someone’s thunder
If you steal someone’s thunder you take the credit for something someone else did and for which you do not deserve to get the credit. Steal seems logical enough, but why thunder? The story is this. The 18 th century playwright John Dennis had a simple but brilliant idea: by rattling a sheet of tin, he could imitate the sound of thunder for dramatic effect in of his plays. The play was not well received and had a very short run, but the sound effect was quite a success and was soon used in other plays, including a production of Macbeth. During a performance of this play, Dennis is said to have leapt to his feet and cried in anger: “See how the rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!” (Flavell & Flavell 3 2000: 188)
St. Lubbock’s Day
Who is the saint who is commemorated on St. Lubbock’s Day? He is a rather secular saint but he must have appeared like a saint to the British working class of the 19th century. He, i.e. John Lubbock, MP for London University, wrote the draft of what became the first Bank Holidays Act. This act introduced the first four public holidays beyond the common law ones of Christmas Day and Good Friday, and the first paid holidays in history. They were Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August and Boxing. They all became known as St. Lubbock’s Day, but quite especially the August Bank Holiday, the only summer holiday of the four. (Quinion 2009: 295)
Storey
Is storey related to story? It may well be. In medieval cathedrals, stained class windows sometimes told stories, and as the windows were so tall that they stretched over different floors of the building, all floors might have had their own stories. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 266-7)
Strait
Is it straitjacket or straighjacket? Both forms are met with today, but straitjacket makes more sense, at least etymologically. The word strait, meaning something restricted or confined, is today mostly used to refer to a narrow stretch of water between land, as in the Straits of Gibraltar, and in the expression dire strait, ‘in serious financial difficulty’. Also, strait and narrow makes as much or as little sense as straight and narrow, although the latter is now the more common form. (Quinion 2009: 306-7)
Sugar
English sugar is derived from Old French zuchre, which is derived from Italian zucchero, which is derived from Latin succarum, which is derived from Arabic sukkar, which is derived from Persian shakar, which is derived from Sanskrit sakara, which mans ‘gravel’. Although the word is Indian, the plant, the sugar cane, probably originated in New Guinea . One of Alexander the Great’s officers described it as ‘honey without bees’. (Flavell & Flavell 2005: 71)
Supper
You can have dinner in the evening and supper at noon or supper in the evening and dinner at noon. Al least you can if you are American, even if you live in the same state. Many regional and family traditions use the two words in different ways. American colonists typically ate their largest meal mid-afternoon, calling it dinner. Later, they used to eat their largest meal of the day at noon, still calling it dinner. A simple meal in the evening was added and referred to as supper. In the twentieth century, urban families began referring to their evening meal as dinner, whether it was simple or not. However, on Sundays or holidays it was the noon meal which was referred to as dinner. In Britain, the distinction seems to be slightly different, supper regularly being the last meal of the day and dinner regularly being the main meal of the day. Supper can therefore sometimes be dinner. All depends on the size of the meal. According to the OED, there is a sociolinguistic factor which plays a role here. The OED says that dinner is the chief meal of the day and, as opposed to ordinary people, usually eaten in the evening by “the professional and fashionable classes”. (Berg 2007: 18-20; Forsyth 2012: 120)
Surprised
The following anecdote is told about Noah Webster (or any other language maven). His wife comes home to find him in bed with another woman. She says, “I am surprised.” Webster answers: “No, dear. You are astonished. I am surprised.” The anecdote plays with the meaning change surprised has undergone. It is now synonymous with astonished. But it did not use to be. In Webster’s days, only astonished meant ‘stunned’, ‘confounded’; surprise primarily meant ‘being caught unawares’, ‘attacked unexpectedly’. (O’Conner 2010: 197)
Swenekafew
Not a word one would find in a dictionary, and yet, in a sense, a word. It appeared in a daily newspaper in the US at the beginning of the 20th century. The newspaper suspected another local newspaper of copying their articles, and, to test the case, published an article on a certain Mejk Swenekafew, a non-existing person. The article did appear in the other newspaper on the following day, thus proving that they plagiarised. The man’s name, when read backwards, gives We fake news.