Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 May 14

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May 14

Buttercup sandwiches

What does the phrase "buttercup sandwiches" mean? I'm reading a biography about Syd Barrett, A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett, and this phrase is used at one point. If you'd like it in context, here goes:

"I don't think he was at all political. He was much more buttercup sandwiches and pixies. More cosmic. More mystic."

It then goes on to say:

"Donovan was buttercup sandwiches and went on being buttercup sandwiches long after everyone else had stopped."

I think I get it from context but I'd like someone to explain it if you can so that I can put more precise meaning to the phrase. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 06:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It is a proverbial foodstuff consumed by flower children. It comes from the 1969 song To B Without a Hitch by the folk singer Bridget St John. In this case, it's just a way of saying that Syd Barrett was somehow starry-eyed and hippy-dippy. LANTZY^TALK 08:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Although any hippies reading this shouldn't try it at home, because "Ranunculaceae contain protoanemonin, which is toxic to humans and animals.". Apparently "Ingesting fresh Ranunculaceae can lead to nausea, vomiting, dizziness, spasms, or paralysis." Yum! Alansplodge (talk) 14:28, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. Thank you both! Dismas|^(talk) 08:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Etymology of an Afrikaans standard expression

The expression "Dit is nie die dood van Katryn nie", in English "It is not the death of Catherine", is used to express the idea that some event is not as disasterous as it might at first seem. It is usually used to placate or calm down someone who is overreacting to an event or prefixed to reporting an event so as to preclude excessive alarm in the audence. I'm not sure if the expression exists in Dutch or any of the other European languages that influenced Afrikaans during it's formative period - mid 17th to early 20th century. I presume "Catherine" would have been someone politically or socially important and her death probably caused a major upheaval of some sort. My prime suspects are several European queens of the period who were named Catherine or a variant of the name. Is it possible to identify the specific Catherine whose death gave rise to this idiom? Roger (talk) 13:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like a minced oath for "dood van Christus" or "kruisdood" or "kruisiging", which Dutch speakers frequently use in the sense of "big deal" or "pain in the ass". Among Afrikaners the expression might have been bowdlerized so as not to offend Calvinist sensibilities. LANTZY^TALK 18:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

There's a blog about it here, where Katryn is described as a traditional Afrikaans name, not any particular person. Fwiw, it's not mentioned in David Crystal's vast collection of international proverbs, As They Say in Zanzibar. Not that the book contains etymologies anyway, but I just mention this as an indicator of the apparent obscurity of the expression. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:43, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. The blogger is basically asking the same question I am - not providing any answer to the question. The theory that it is euphemism for the "death of Christ" is certainly plausible, however, such euphemisms usually rhyme with the original word they are obscuring. "Katryn" is nowhere near rhyming with "Christus". I'm not yet convinced that Katryn/Catherine was not a real person whose death was a highly significant event. Roger (talk) 08:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think such euphemism rhyme in general, e.g. 'what the heck' for 'hell', 'fudge' for 'fuck' etc. They usually start out the same as the original so that it is possible to correct oneself halfway through the word. Btw I am not aware of the expression with something like Katryn existing in Dutch. - Lindert (talk) 10:45, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Neither am I. It seems theoretically possible that there is an underlying expression *Kerst sijn doot ("Christ his death") or something similar. Iblardi (talk) 12:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Because Afrikaans is closely related to Dutch, it might be a reference to nl:Katrijn, a doll who is the wife of the doll nl:Jan Klaassen (pop). In English they are known as Punch & Judy. I am native Dutch, and the first thing I, and presumably most Dutch people, think of when hearing the name Katrijn/Katryn is this doll. 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:57, 15 May 2012 (UTC) Martin.

Ever ever a verb?

H. L. Mencken, in his American Language, says that:

"the compound negative is of great antiquity and was once quite respectable. The student of Anglo-Saxon encounters it constantly. In that language the negative of the verb was formed by prefixing a particle, _ne_. Thus, _singan_ (=_to sing_) became _ne singan_ (=_not to sing_). In case the verb began with a vowel the _ne_ dropped its _e_ and was combined with the verb, as in _naefre_ (never), from _ne-aefre_ (=_not ever_)."

(Underscores represent italics). Is he talking nonsense, or was aefre a verb in Anglo-Saxon? Henry^Flower 14:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Which reminds me... (many) decades ago, we asked our high-school French teacher if, to convey the meaning of without, one were obliged to use the word sans, or whether we could get away with "n'avec pas". She assured us that our notion, while creative, was a non-starter. So I guess that with, anyway, is not a verb. In French anyway. According to our teacher anyway.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 15:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Bing and Frank might have evered. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how aefre could have been a verb. I think that this is an unusually poorly written bit of Mencken and that he just means that never was formed by the same process that was used to form negatives of verbs, not that aefre was a verb. Marco polo (talk) 16:43, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure Marco Polo is right. If Mencken had said "just like" rather than "as in" it would have been clearer, but I don't think it's particularly bad writing. --ColinFine (talk) 17:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not horrific, but not up to Mencken's usual standard. Marco polo (talk) 17:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea, though it seems a strain given how he continues: he goes on to talk further about verbs and then goes on to negation of other parts of speech:

"In case the verb began with an _h_ or a _w_ followed by a vowel, the _h_ or _w_ of the verb and the _e_ of _ne_ were both dropped, as in _naefth_ (=_has not_), from _ne-haefth_ (=_not has_), and _nolde_ (=_would not_), from _ne-wolde_. Finally, in case the vowel following a _w_ was an _i_, it changed to _y_, as in _nyste_ (=_knew not_), from _ne-wiste_. But inasmuch as Anglo-Saxon was a fully inflected language the inflections for the negative did not stop with the verbs; the indefinite article, the indefinite pronoun and even some of the nouns were also inflected, and survivors of those forms appear to this day in such words as _none_ and _nothing_. "

Henry^Flower 23:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)