Rumbling-pot

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>The fact that several disparate Dutch sites in English use "rumbling-pot"
>as a translation and one Dutch-language site even includes the English term
>in the middle of an otherwise all-Dutch text seems to indicate that it's
>more than just an individual translator's spontaneous creation.

Of course it's likely that some of the users of "rumbling pot" looked it up
in a Dutch-English dictionary. My Hippocrene dictionary shows
"rumbling-pot" (as well as "rumbler") as an English translation for
"rommelpot". OTOH the Routledge dictionary shows no translation, just a
description: "primitive rumbling Dutch musical instrument" or so. [The
German equivalent seems to be either "Brummtopf" or "Rummelpott".] When the
instrument is mentioned in English, it is likely to be called by its Dutch
name "rommelpot" (quick google shows "rommelpot" used in English more often
than either "rumble-pot" or "rumbling-pot", I believe [searching for
English-language sites]). The Brazilian cuica (name Portuguese from
Guarani) is somewhat similar and is described as a sort of a rommelpot
sometimes although it's just described in MW3 without a native-English
'translation'.

Anyway, one individual translator's calque will suffice if he's the one who
provides the item to a popular Dutch-English dictionary!

A parallel: the instrument called "viola da gamba" in Italian is usually
called "viola da gamba" in English also. However the English calque "leg
viol" is occasionally encountered: does "leg viol" appear in any English
dictionary? [I don't know.]

I would say that the usual English words for the viola da gamba and the
cuica respectively are "viola da gamba" and "cuica": maybe the usual
English word for the rommelpot is "rommelpot"?

-- Doug Wilson