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Post by goofy on Jun 24, 2008 18:20:54 GMT
guru comes from a Proto-Indo-European form meaning "heavy", and it's cognate with gravity. Is that guru the English word or guru the Indian word? guru the Hindi word, and by extension the English word, since it was borrowed from Hindi.
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Post by Twoddle on Jun 24, 2008 20:14:48 GMT
Is that guru the English word or guru the Indian word? guru the Hindi word, and by extension the English word, since it was borrowed from Hindi. Yes, but words borrowed from other languages quite often change their meaning in the process, and guru in English doesn't equate to guru in Hindi. Bloke is another example, of course. (Actually, I've now consulted a couple of etymological sites that contradict what I thought I knew - that bloke was an Indian word meaning "that", which somehow went through the process of referring to "that man" and then just "man".)
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Post by Bertie on Jun 24, 2008 22:58:52 GMT
Isn't the slang term 'bint' also taken from the Indian language (or one of them). That and 'chota peg' and 'burra peg'.
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Post by goofy on Jun 24, 2008 23:09:30 GMT
guru the Hindi word, and by extension the English word, since it was borrowed from Hindi. Yes, but words borrowed from other languages quite often change their meaning in the process, and guru in English doesn't equate to guru in Hindi. I'm not sure what you mean. I just mean that the English word guru is cognate with gravity, because they are both derived from the same Proto-Indo-European root. I thought this was a pretty uncontroversial thing to say.
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Post by goofy on Jun 24, 2008 23:22:06 GMT
Isn't the slang term 'bint' also taken from the Indian language (or one of them). That and 'chota peg' and 'burra peg'. bint is from the Arabic for "daughter". I've never heard the other two, but chota could be from the Hindi for "small" and burra from the Hindi for "big".
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jun 25, 2008 0:34:16 GMT
They are drinks, Goofy. A chota peg was a small drink (probably a whisky and soda, or gin and tonic) and a burra peg would be a double.
You might enjoy some Kipling.
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Post by Rajesh Valluri AKA Raj on Jun 25, 2008 1:16:54 GMT
guru the Hindi word, and by extension the English word, since it was borrowed from Hindi. Yes, but words borrowed from other languages quite often change their meaning in the process, and guru in English doesn't equate to guru in Hindi. Bloke is another example, of course. (Actually, I've now consulted a couple of etymological sites that contradict what I thought I knew - that bloke was an Indian word meaning "that", which somehow went through the process of referring to "that man" and then just "man".) We don't have anything that sounds like "bloke" in Hindi, so I am a little skeptical of that theory.
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Post by Rajesh Valluri AKA Raj on Jun 25, 2008 1:18:47 GMT
Isn't the slang term 'bint' also taken from the Indian language (or one of them). That and 'chota peg' and 'burra peg'. bint is from the Arabic for "daughter". I've never heard the other two, but chota could be from the Hindi for "small" and burra from the Hindi for "big". You are right, goofy. "Chota" is hindi for small and "burra", pronunced "bud-ah", for big.
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Post by Rajesh Valluri AKA Raj on Jun 25, 2008 1:21:42 GMT
Pundit, great word! I'd forgotten that comes from the Indian, thanks Vallurirajesh. You are welcome, Paul. Its funny how your profile says you are God and your avatar is Homer Simpson. Its funny because I just watched a "Simpsons" re-run last night where Homer goes to India on work and he promotes himself as God.
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 25, 2008 1:22:04 GMT
Wiktionary (for what it's worth) offers the following etymological possibilities for bloke:
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Post by Rajesh Valluri AKA Raj on Jun 25, 2008 1:40:56 GMT
Wiktionary (for what it's worth) offers the following etymological possibilities for bloke: Ahh, but "loke/lokh" is Hindi/Indian for "public/people". The lower house of Indian parliament is called "lok-sabha" meaning people's court. So, I think its still a long shot to argue that "bloke", a singular male reference came from Lokh. An interesting discussion I stumbled on to researching the word "bloke". lloyd.emich.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0407a&L=ads-l&P=10185
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 25, 2008 2:49:01 GMT
Raj: Thanks for the link. Interesting.
I've never before investigated bloke's origins.
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Post by goofy on Jun 25, 2008 4:14:45 GMT
Ahh, but "loke/lokh" is Hindi/Indian for "public/people". The lower house of Indian parliament is called "lok-sabha" meaning people's court. So, I think its still a long shot to argue that "bloke", a singular male reference came from Lokh. लोक lok "the world; people" and लोग log "people, folk" seem to be related. But it's probably not the origin of bloke. My Oxford Dictionary English Etymology says the origin of bloke is Shelta, so that seems to be the most widely accepted theory.
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Post by Dave on Jun 25, 2008 7:32:30 GMT
If a cartwright makes carts, and a wheelwright makes wheels, it stands to reason that someone who makes arks is an arkwright. That means Noah must have been an Arkwright. And an arcwright could be an electrician; an arcwrong would be a lousy electrician.
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Post by Dave M on Jun 25, 2008 8:27:40 GMT
Is that how we get arcangels?
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