[lit-ideas] Re: Accent, Boche and Kybosh
- From: Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:23:57 -0500
And then there's the Quebecois term of endearment: mon petite chou-chou.
Truth be told, I also am also influenced by what I hear (and/or the
cadence of what I read). I've been known to launch into accents I've
only heard on television by the cadence of what I'm reading aloud (which
I used to do with some regularity...not so much now...). Life is so
multifarious...or is that nefarious?
U.
David Ritchie wrote:
Alas, no... unless I have been near highlanders recently. My accent
is somewhat chameolonic, but sometimes it just changes and in quite
bizarre ways. I well remember chatting, at a conference put on by
Simon Fraser, with a Scot just before it was my turn to give a paper.
I rose, walked to the microphone, and began, for reasons known only to
my inner ear, in some version of Glasgow, "Heeeers tha kwesjun..."
Speaking of highlanders, did you know that one of the supposed origins
of the name Grant is that it is derived from the Norse for pine,
"gran"? And speaking of names, did you know that Hooligan was a
family name, a bunch of ruffians who lived in southeast London at the
end of the nineteenth century? And while I have you on the hook, I'll
go on to tell you that the reason the French called the Germans
"Boche" in the First World War (and possibly before) is cabbages.
"Tete de caboche" was Picardy slang for disagreeable person of limited
intellect, which term got shortened when the Germans appeared over the
horizon. A person might then wonder whether the popular First World
War expression, "put the kybosh on," as in "Belgium put the kybosh on
the Kaiser," was somehow derived from boche. Well, no. It's Irish.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/34/messages/216.html
What I haven't yet found out is whether the term "boches" was also
used in the Franco-Prussian war, which was a war caused indirectly by
the Spanish Marshal Prim--see Wikipedia on Franco-Prussian war and on
the end of Isabella's reign here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_II_of_Spain
Carry on...in whatever accent you choose.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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