LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.04.14 (01) [E]

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From: Tom Mc Rae <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2005.04.13 (03) [E]

I regard them and their ilk as such but then I am probably of a much
earlier generation than most of you folks. The most atrocious example
of all appears in Scots English, the ghastly 'Thingwy' which is used as
a substitute for any noun and is often used more than once in a
sentence..."Ah went tae thingwy's tae git a thingwy." was commonplace
in Working Class Edinburgh in my childhood. Like Orwellian Newspeak it
ultimately restricted the thought process and the vocabulary of the
users. Far from exclusive to the Working Class I even knew several
English academics who adopted it when resident in Scotland.

On 14/04/2005, at 12:40 AM, Ian Pollock <ispollock at shaw.ca> wrote:

> I don't think you can really say language deteriorates at all. You
> mention "Fab" and "Telly". Are these examples of deterioration?
Regards
Tom Mc Rae
Brisbane Australia
Oh Wad Some Power the Giftie Gie Us
Tae See Oorsel's as Ithers See Us
Robert Burns

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Hi, Tom!

Don't people in Australia use "thingy" in the same way, or was that only in
my circles?  I thought I heard it used in England as well.

In Northern German (at least), possibly based on Low Saxon, you can use
_Dings_ or _Dingsda_ in much the same fashion.  _Ding_ is 'thing', and _da_
is assumedly the word for 'there'.  In Missingsch and derived German
dialects you can say _Dings_ (not plural) instead of _Ding_, also in Low
Saxon, which is why I assume this _Dingsda_ comes from Low Saxon _dat dings
daar_ 'the/that thing there'.  But in the named German dialects _Dingsda_
can be used without the article, even for names one has forgotten, both
names for people and places (as in the operetta _Der Vetter aus Dingsda_
"The Cousin from Whatsisname" by Eduard Künneke and Hermann Haller, here
probably implying something like "whatever boondocks").  This _Dingsda_ can
be used much the same as American English "thingymabob," "whatsisname,"
"doodad" etc., and also like non-American "thingy" (and Scots _thingwy_?),
as in Missingsch _Wassn nas Dinksdå_ (= _Was ist denn das Ding(s) da_) 'What
sort of (weird) thing/gadget/contraption/thingymabob/doodad is that
(there)?"   You can also combine it with _weischå_ (= _(du) weißt ja_ 'well,
you know (what)'); e.g., _Das happich von weischå Dinksdå gekricht_ 'I got
it from ya know Whatsisname.'

So your  (well, not *yours* of course) Scots _Ah went tae thingwy's tae git
a thingwy_  would be in Missingsch _Ich binßu Dinksdå das Dinksdå hooln_.

So according to you it causes cerebral atrophy (or lexical shrinkage), huh?
My wife would be inclined to agree with you there, at least in my case, or
she would say it's the result of it .  ;-)  In my case it tends to set in
when it's past my bedtime.  I guess you wouldn't be amused.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

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