Brings back memories of a working holiday in SA
Pic of the Day
- Thread starter Kilham5
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Chubba
Active member
Ahh man, some of you EU guys are doomed. 
It just started raining here.
It just started raining here.
I'm off out soon with my Brolly. You wouldn't own one of them ,oh wait a minute I forgot you're Vancouver area.Ahh man, some of you EU guys are doomed.
It just started raining here.
Gila Man
Active member
Once again, it's off to google I go for the "Scottish to English" translator.
“Brolly”…I had to google that also.
I thought that was a typo and you meant knolly, which is/was a very good Mtb built in the Vancouver area. A few of my neighbours have them.
But unfortunately they went out of business recently.
Brolly = Umbrella haha
First trip to Canberra with the new EMTB. Hit up the Centenary Trail.
BTW. I should be skiing these weekends. But 4 weeks into the ski season in Australia and it's not even cold enough to make enough snow to get a lift open. Very sad.
BTW. I should be skiing these weekends. But 4 weeks into the ski season in Australia and it's not even cold enough to make enough snow to get a lift open. Very sad.
Continuing my theme of really boring pictures. Just detoured on the way home to the climbing centre, because they sell Guinness.
Had to improvise a beer parasol.
As for brollys ..
How come In France a parasol is a parasol. In England it's a parasol.
A parachute is a parachute.
Add in some rain and a parapluie in English becomes an Umbrella
!
Like WHY ? It doesn't even sound English !
Why isn't a parachute an Umbrairslow ? Or something ?
It's such a stupid word it gets instantly replaced in real world use with words like Brolly. Which in fairness also makes zero sense .
Had to improvise a beer parasol.
As for brollys ..
How come In France a parasol is a parasol. In England it's a parasol.
A parachute is a parachute.
Add in some rain and a parapluie in English becomes an Umbrella
! Like WHY ? It doesn't even sound English !
Why isn't a parachute an Umbrairslow ? Or something ?
It's such a stupid word it gets instantly replaced in real world use with words like Brolly. Which in fairness also makes zero sense .
Ah yeah but it still has Latin roots like so much of English & French. Think of the word for shade in French it starts to make sense.
Continuing my theme of really boring pictures. Just detoured on the way home to the climbing centre, because they sell Guinness.
Had to improvise a beer parasol.
View attachment 187641
As for brollys ..
How come In France a parasol is a parasol. In England it's a parasol.
A parachute is a parachute.
Add in some rain and a parapluie in English becomes an Umbrella
Like WHY ? It doesn't even sound English !
Why isn't a parachute an Umbrairslow ? Or something ?
It's such a stupid word it gets instantly replaced in real world use with words like Brolly. Which in fairness also makes zero sense .
Zimm old chum chill and have another Guinness after all The Kings English is the go to language of the world. No explanation needed for lesser dialects
Entirely your fault . After three Guinness special exports... My pee stop.Zimm old chum chill and have another Guinness after all The Kings English is the go to language of the world. No explanation needed for lesser dialects
Being very sensible and taking the tow path home rather than falling off and looking like a tw4t.
If anyone is interested, the Zeb ultimate is unphased by towpaths.
Bugger ..thats one helluva pee after just 3 pints ...good job you didnt go into the bracken there could have been a landslide ..
The English langauge shows its roots. It was a very invaded country for millenia. The original inhabitants were pushed out by the Celts from Western Europe. They in turn were pushed out by whoever followed them. The Celts became the Welsh the Irish and the Scots. It's a toss up between the Angles, Saxons and the Jutes from Northern Europe as to who who turfed out the Celts. The Romans were in there around 2000 years ago. Then when they left, what we now know as England became a number of warring kingdoms until they were united under one king (Arthur I think). Then Vikings started making mischief and had significant success. All these invaders left their imprint in the language and the place names. One of my workmates from almost 50 years ago had a grandad from the northern coast of England who in his youth, went on a biking holiday in Norway. He discovered to his amazement that he could understand the locals in their coastal villages! That would have been maybe 100 years ago? I digress.Continuing my theme of really boring pictures. Just detoured on the way home to the climbing centre, because they sell Guinness.
Had to improvise a beer parasol.
View attachment 187641
As for brollys ..
How come In France a parasol is a parasol. In England it's a parasol.
A parachute is a parachute.
Add in some rain and a parapluie in English becomes an Umbrella
Like WHY ? It doesn't even sound English !
Why isn't a parachute an Umbrairslow ? Or something ?
It's such a stupid word it gets instantly replaced in real world use with words like Brolly. Which in fairness also makes zero sense .
In 1066, the Norman French decided to have a go and they invaded and won, Bastards! French became the language of power and influence and the common man made do with what he had. Therefore the English language, relied on uneducated and illiterate peasants to keep it alive. It is one of the reasons that the English language is so simple, we don't have masculine, feminine or neuter words (let alone the 17 that the Hungarians have , or is it the Bulgarians?). The rules of English grammar are simple compared to many languanges and it is easy to make yourself understood with very few words. I read once that average reader of the Sun only needs 400 words, whereas someone in Japan needs to know 4000 characters to read their popular newspaper. This simplicity is one of the reasons that English is so easy to learn and so common across the world. But the spelling, OMG! the spelling!
There we are deeply affected by our history. For example, there are 8 or 9 different ways of pronouncing the word ending "ough". I'll leave you with that one. Our language is littered with words that are clearly based upon Latin, French, Norse, Saxon, Old English, Celtic. More recently, we even have imported words from places that our British Empire spread their tentacles. India for example (bungalow, char, curry). The English love a nice new word that does better than the existing ones and we have zero embarrassment at stealing them. We plunder Greek, Latin, Arabic. We just don't care, If it's a good word, we'll have it thanks very much. But the spelling!!By the way the word "umbrella" comes from the Latin "umbra" meaning "little shadow".
We are in many ways like the Japanese in that we can put two words together to make a third, like wind and mill, water and mill, steam and hammer, sun and roof etc. Many other languages just have a different word that shows no link at all (the French are the worst at this, but there are probably many langauges equally guilty). That just makes it harder to learn any other language except English. But OMG the spelling!
From a mid European aliens view. Isn‘t it even worse than what Zimmerchiller summarized while fighting dehydration in the french sun?
Isn‘t para and sol Spanish, „For the sun“?! Si claro! Zimmerchiller, keep up fighting dehydation!
Whereas pluie is rain en francais? But ins“t it „pleut“ and parapluie should be wrong and it should read parapleut. Even to me that sounds less elegant. Well done France, not only because in Cologne it is locally called Paraplue, thanks to Napoleon and the french occupation here.
BTW the most famous Regenschirm in Germany is the Knirps. A foldable parabrella, a Knirps = tiny boy. Like Tempos.
But even after having lost a gallon of sweat (no A/C) while compensating with another Veltins I only get one idea what made Brits connecting „um“ with „brella“. BTW, brella or brolly reminds me of east german meal, a „broiler“ , a grilled chicken. Nahhh, to hot for it now.
Well, in Italy it is a ombrello! So it may be from the time when the first wave of migrants, aka the Romans, managed to cross the channel for occupying that island in the Northsea. And while sitting there in the cold and permanent rain, heavily armed and far away from the mediterranean, they kept jabbing about the rain and how much they missed a ombrello.
Here we go! The secret of Europe: French are Spanish, Germans are French and Brits are Italians! Cheers.
Isn‘t para and sol Spanish, „For the sun“?! Si claro! Zimmerchiller, keep up fighting dehydation!
Whereas pluie is rain en francais? But ins“t it „pleut“ and parapluie should be wrong and it should read parapleut. Even to me that sounds less elegant. Well done France, not only because in Cologne it is locally called Paraplue, thanks to Napoleon and the french occupation here.
BTW the most famous Regenschirm in Germany is the Knirps. A foldable parabrella, a Knirps = tiny boy. Like Tempos.
But even after having lost a gallon of sweat (no A/C) while compensating with another Veltins I only get one idea what made Brits connecting „um“ with „brella“. BTW, brella or brolly reminds me of east german meal, a „broiler“ , a grilled chicken. Nahhh, to hot for it now.
Well, in Italy it is a ombrello! So it may be from the time when the first wave of migrants, aka the Romans, managed to cross the channel for occupying that island in the Northsea. And while sitting there in the cold and permanent rain, heavily armed and far away from the mediterranean, they kept jabbing about the rain and how much they missed a ombrello.
Here we go! The secret of Europe: French are Spanish, Germans are French and Brits are Italians! Cheers.
Let's get serious and ask a sober expert. @Greg Watts
Why is a umbrella called a umbrella and not parapluie?
Why is a umbrella called a umbrella and not parapluie?
@Arminius - a sober expert, in this thread? Bold ask. Right, umbra - Latin for shadow or shade. Stick a diminutive on it and you get umbrella: little shadow. Not "para-pluie" (against the rain) but "little shade thing." The Italians, who inherited Latin most directly and had strong reasons to care about shade before rain, coined ombrello - and English borrowed it from them, not from the French. This tracks with your earlier point about the Romans sitting in Britain grumbling about the weather: they'd have missed shade far more than a rainy-day device, so the word was already about the sun first. The rain-repelling function came later.
@Euro touched on parapluie being the sensible French construction - pluie being rain, para being against - which is perfectly logical. The French just did the practical thing and renamed it for its British use case. English, characteristically, ignored all of that and kept the Italian word that meant something else entirely. As you've established, English doesn't so much evolve as accumulate - which is how you end up with "umbrella" meaning "portable rain shield" via a word that meant "small shadow" via people who mainly needed it on sunny days.
@Zimmerframe's beer parasol photographic evidence remains the most compelling contribution to this entire etymological inquiry.
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