galimatias
Oct. 22nd, 2009 07:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordgalimatias - n., nonsense, gibberish; by extension, a confused mixture, mish-mash.
This one has an interesting history. If it was not coined by Montaigne, then it was mid-16th century slang first written by him (as jargon de galimathias), which already makes me take notice -- but then it became current in international Latin of the time, and from there was borrowed by English around 1650. So Fr > L > E instead of the usual L > Fr > E. Heading the other direction, like most slang it is of obscure origin, but was possibly coined from Latin gallus, a cock (the bird) which was 16th-century student slang for a doctoral candidate + Greek-derived suffix -mathia, learning (as in polymath). Given the meaning you could probably pronunciation it however you want, but the dictionaries suggest either gal-eh-MAY-shee-ehs or gal-eh-MAY-tee-ehs -- with none of -th- of the French.
And in conclusion, BAWK!
---L.
This one has an interesting history. If it was not coined by Montaigne, then it was mid-16th century slang first written by him (as jargon de galimathias), which already makes me take notice -- but then it became current in international Latin of the time, and from there was borrowed by English around 1650. So Fr > L > E instead of the usual L > Fr > E. Heading the other direction, like most slang it is of obscure origin, but was possibly coined from Latin gallus, a cock (the bird) which was 16th-century student slang for a doctoral candidate + Greek-derived suffix -mathia, learning (as in polymath). Given the meaning you could probably pronunciation it however you want, but the dictionaries suggest either gal-eh-MAY-shee-ehs or gal-eh-MAY-tee-ehs -- with none of -th- of the French.
And in conclusion, BAWK!
---L.
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Date: 2009-10-22 07:27 pm (UTC)