Automation

[Chris Angelico]

You need to distinguish between "Scottish English" and "Scots", the
latter being related to English, but isn't English, much as Danish is
related to Swedish, but isn't Swedish.

Ah. When I referred to a "Scots" word, I was talking about the Gaelic
language, which has a number of delightfully expressive terms just
waiting to be borrowed!

ChrisA

 

[Chris Angelico]

Here's a response from a full-blooded Scot on the subject.

No, Chris, you haven't been led astray. The language is referred to as
Scots, not Scottish. There is an academic journal called Scottish Language,
which I edited for many years, but the meaning of that is "language in
Scotland" - it publishes articles on Scots, Gaelic, and English as used in
Scotland.

So there you are. Your piece of random linguistics trivia for the day.

Enjoy!

ChrisA

 

[Chris Angelico]

Ah. When I referred to a "Scots" word, I was talking about the Gaelic
language, which has a number of delightfully expressive terms just
waiting to be borrowed!

By the way: I've since been corrected, and what I meant was not
actually the Scottish Gaelic language but the one that is actually
referred to as "Scots". My clarification was unhelpfully unclear, and
I apologize.

ChrisA

 

[Grant Edwards]

And the obligatory response:

Iltnsegnetiry I'm sdutynig tihs crsrootaivnel pnoheenmon at the
Dptmnearet of Liuniigctss at Absytrytewh Uivsreitny and my
exartrnairdoy doisiervecs waleoetderhlhy cndairotct the picsbeliud
fdnngiis rrgdinaeg the rtlvaeie dfuictlify of ialtnstny ttalrisanng
sentences. My rsceeerhars deplveeod a cnionevent ctnoiaptorn at
hnasoa/tw.nartswdbvweos/utrtek./il taht dosnatterems that the
hhpsteyios uuiqelny wrtaarns criieltidby if the aoussmpitn that the
prreoecandpne of your wrods is not eendetxd is uueniqtolnabse.
Aoilegpos for aidnoptg a cdocianorttry vwpiienot but, ttoheliacrley
spkeaing, lgitehnneng the words can mnartafucue an iocnuurgons
samenttet that is vlrtiauly isbpilechmoenrne.

While I certainly couldn't read that at normal speed, there were only
a few words that I had to stop and actually puzzle over...

 

[Grant Edwards]

Anyway, we Aussies know more about your geography than you know about
ours, I reckon. Which of these is not a real place: Parramatta,
Warrnambool, Cerinabbin, Mordialloc? No fair Googling them, see if you
can call it.

Next thing you'll be telling us that the Eels are a real rugby team.

 

[Chris Angelico]

Next thing you'll be telling us that the Eels are a real rugby team.

Wouldn't have the foggiest. I don't follow sport, so I don't know
which teams are real and which are integer.

ChrisA

 

[Tim Golden]

Wouldn't have the foggiest. I don't follow sport, so I don't know
which teams are real and which are integer.

Which one was it, by the way? (Which was the fake place name?) Did I
miss an email in this gripping series?

TJG

 

[Chris Angelico]

Which one was it, by the way? (Which was the fake place name?) Did I
miss an email in this gripping series?

I got a private email guessing (correctly), but nobody who actually
_knew_, and nobody who was able to deduce the answer based on the
structure of the words, which means I picked a sufficiently plausible
fake But the actual fake is Cerinabbin, utterly and completely made
up for the post. Parramatta is apparently known to a few people - it's
in Sydney; Warrnambool and Mordialloc are both places in Victoria.

ChrisA

 

[Grant Edwards]

You might have included Woolloomooloo in the list!

Anybody from the early days of TCP/IP networking on PC-DOS and Mac OS
would also recognize Wollongong even if they couldn't tell you where
it was.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Parramatta reads like a accented "parameter"

Cerinabbin and Mordialloc sound like names from the Welsh influenced
Arthurian mythos: cf: Ceredwyn, Mordred (or a new word for a core dump
caused by memory faults: morte-alloc, death in allocation)

Cerinabbin is the fake name, although there is a suburb Morrabbin in
Melbourne (and Darebin as well, which is pronounced "Darra Bin" not "Dare
Bin").

Many placenames in Australia are borrowed from the UK, or named after
British Royalty or explorers. Melbourne itself was, for a short time,
named "Batmania", after the explorer John Batman. Others are based on
native Australian Aboriginal words or placenames, such as Wagga Wagga,
Woolloomoloo (a real place with an imaginary university, notable for the
famous Monty Python Philosopher's Sketch), Coolangatta, Kalgoorlie, Moe
(pronounced "Mo-e", not "Mow"), Koo Wee Rup, Didjabringabeeralong, and
our capital city, Canberra.

Actually, Didjabringabeeralong is a town in the land of Fourecks (or XXXX
for those who can't spell), invented by Terry Pratchett for the novel
"The Lost Continent". But the others are real.

For a serious look at Australian placenames named after Australian
Aboriginal words, see wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_place_names_of_Aboriginal_origin

 

[Tim Delaney]

On 21 November 2013 11:58, Steven D'Aprano <

For a serious look at Australian placenames named after Australian
Aboriginal words, see wikipedia:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_place_names_of_Aboriginal_origin

Just noticed that my town was missing - added it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittagong,_New_South_Wales

Tim Delaney

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:58:27 -0500, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

Cerinabbin is the fake name, although there is a suburb Morrabbin in
Melbourne (and Darebin as well, which is pronounced "Darra Bin" not "Dare
Bin").

That's okay... The old Bard's Tale game started in "Skara Brae" --
which I always "spoke" as "Scarborough" <G>