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Generated : 29th March 2024


006

Joe from Hradec Kralove

Hi, I am Czech. So I have a few comments about the Czech section.

Semtex
This famous explosive is produced 20 lms South of the place I live. The city where is the factory is called Pardubice. Semtex is the product name only. There is no location called Semtex.

Robot
This word was invented by Karel Capek (Czech writer) when he was writing about the dangers of artifical inteligence. "Robota" is forced labour. However, a "robot" is a machine that is a artificial forced worker.

I hope the above is understandabe. Anyway ur site is great.

*****************

JT

The explosive is named after Semtin, a suburb of Pardubice in eastern Bohemia where the compound was first manufactured. It was invented in 1966 by Stanislav Brebera.


005

James Meyer-Bejdl

Hi,

With respect to Romanian words borrowed by English, I'd like to point out that your meaning for Dracula is incorrect. Dracula means nothing in Romanian (in fact it's a grammatical impossibility). The word it's a corruption of is Dracul (or possibly Dracule, which is the vocative form of the same word). Dracul does not mean the snake and nor does it mean the dragon as is often said (the Romanian for dragon being balaur). It actually means "the devil", drac being devil/satan and -ul being the masculine definite article as seen in the common mildly offensive phrase, "Du-te dracului", or "Go to the devil", dracului being the masculine, definite, genitive/accusative form of the word. Another point I'd make is that the word rendered pastrami in English is actually pastrama in Romanian - probably got confused with salami.


004

Tbatha Stevens

"Idaho" is not Shoshone for "light on the mountain". It was made up by a white man who thought it sounded Indian. "Idaho" does not mean a thing.


003

Chuck Veit
(President, Navy & Marine Living History Association)

Dear Kryss,

Kudos on your excellent History of English web pages! I noticed that you have no definition or explanation for "flak" on the German borrowed words page.

It comes from a recent (WWII) German acronym for anti-aircraft guns, which in German are "Fliegerabwehrkanone" ("flyer destruction cannon") Like "Nazi," which came from the first sounds of the words that made up "NATIonal Socialist Deutsches Arbeits Partei" (German Socialist Workers' Party), and "Gestapo," GEheimes STAats POlizei" (Secret State Police), this was shortened to "flak." Even though the Allies had their own version of these guns, which were known to us as "AA" or "double A" for "anti-aircraft," "flak" follows the ancient "Principle of Least Effort," Being only one syllable in length--and so came to be universal.

Regards,

www.navyandmarine.org


002

Kristoffer Polak

You give to entries with Polish words in your web dictionary. Unfortunately both are wrong. As a Polish native speaker I feel compelled to ask you to correct the entries.

1. horde
In Polish the word does not mean a "camp". The meaning is approximately the same as in English: a threatening, undisciplined crowd / "swarm" of people, savage, uncouth and cruel, the word mostly used to denote war enemies. Originally meant a subdivision of the nomadic Tatar (turkic) people from central Asia.

2. mazurka
The word "mazurka" does not exist in Polish. There is, however, a word "mazur" which means both a male person from Mazovia and a triple time folk dance originally from Mazovia (there is no female counterpart of this noun). The diminutive of Mazur - "mazurek" means a musical form created by the composer Frederick Chopin, inspired by the mentioned folk dance. The French distorted the word into "mazurka", and the English got the word from French. Mazurek means also a kind of cake.

With regards


001

Gregg Hinlicky
The definition of "Ahoy".

You have the word being of Dutch origin. Actually, "ahoy" is the word for hello in Slovak or Czech. Just thought you might like to know.


© 2024, KryssTal

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