Gair neu Idiom y Diwrnod - Word or Idiom of the Day

Off topic …

Lovely new profile pic Catrin.

There’s some photobombing in the background by @Kinetic and some others I don’t recognise. :thinking:

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Oh, diolch yn fawr iawn!!!

Thanks for these. I live in hope that someone will translate ‘Lord of the Rings’ into Welsh. I wonder, for a start, what would be a good translation of hobbit…

I, personally would vote to keep Hobbit as Hobbit, as with Orc, Nazgûl, Ents and so on. But Cave Troll could easily be translated to Ellyll yr Ogof for example, and the witch King of Angmar to Brenin Wrach Angmar? :wink:

Word of the Day 17/06/19

Cyfieithu = khuv-yay-thie - to translate
Cyfieithiad = khuv-yay-thie-yad - translation
Cyfieithydd = Khuv-yay-theath - translator

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Ah yes, now I come to think of it Tolkien did provide a lengthy set of notes for translators and one of the words he specifically said should NOT be translated was hobbit. So the Italian translation of ‘The Hobbit’, for example, is simply entitled ‘Lo Hobbit’.

So ‘gwrach’, despite being feminine in gender, can be applied to a man? As indeed ‘witch’ can in English, though it would usually be qualified in that case by ‘male’, or one can use the word ‘warlock’. I don’t know if Welsh has a specific word like warlock for a male witch? I know there’s a word ‘gwiddon’ or ‘gwyddon’ but like ‘ellyll’ it seems to cover a great range of meanings.

Tolkien said ‘Necromancer’ should be translated, so I guess ‘Marwddewin’ would do for that?

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Word of the Day 19/06/2019

Inspired by @chris02’s thread here

Rwy’n dy garu di = roo-een-duh-garry-dee - I love you (formal)
Dw i’n caru chdi = doo-een-carrie-chdee (Welsh ‘ch’ sound)- I love you (informal)
Dw i isho treulio gweddill fy mywyd efo chdi = doo-ee eeshore trail-yo gooethill vuh merrwid ehv-o chdee (Welsh ‘ch’ sound) - I want to spend the rest of my life with you
Ti yw’r unig un i mi = tee eeoor inn-igg een ee me - you are the only one for me
A wnei di fy mhriodi i? = ah oon-ey dee vuh muh-ree-oddie ee - will you marry me?
Wrth gwrs bo fi oddifrif = oorth goorse boh vee otheevree - of course I’m serious
Da ni wedi dyweddio = dah nee weddie duh wetheeo - we are engaged

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Beautiful! :heart: Which one of these did Aran use, or did he go for @garethrking 's silver-tongued ?? line. :laughing:

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Darparwyd gan Wasanaethau Cyngor Priodasol GK
Supplied by GK Marital Advice Services

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Now there’s a story…

I met Aran on a Welsh language dating website called Pishyn in the June of 2004 - no longer active unfortunately (maybe we broke it😉) . Not only did he have a profile on the website, but he was also the ‘tech guy’… and guess who had logging in problems? So ‘tech guy’ had to be contacted with one of those embarrassing ‘Help I’ve forgotten my password’ emails. He decided that my profile warranted a flirtatious reply, which I instantly thought was very unprofessional - tech guys aren’t supposed to flirt, surely? But despite my reserved replies, he persevered. We communicated via emails for about a month before deciding that a proper date was in order. So in July 2004 we went on a blind date… no, we didn’t have profile pictures on the dating website.

I arrived late at the blind date, having been stopped by the police for being caught on camera taking my clothes off in the car. The truth is, my sister in law was driving and we’d just been clothes shopping. I’d bought a top in haste without first trying it on, because we were short of time. So as I was planning to wear the top for the blind date, I decided to try it on in the car whilst she was driving, to make sure it was OK. The police camera had of course caught me taking my seat-belt off. Luckily the police officer was feeling generous and was rather enthralled by my dating website/blind date story, so let us go with best wishes for the date and a warning.

Poor Aran was standing patiently at the bar of The Anglesey in Caernarfon, ordering drinks for us and confusing himself and the bar staff, because I’d sent him a message saying I’d been stopped by the police for stripping, and asking for a white wine and soda/spritzer - I very nearly ended up with two of the same drink… :wink:

That July blind date in the sun was an epic success, because by August he’d moved in! It was in the October of that year Aran proposed. It was unplanned and impromptu. We’d gone out for dinner after work… as you do when you don’t have kids. The pub was quiet and we had the dining room to ourselves. I was half way through my dessert when he asked me, without hesitation, to marry him. I seriously thought that he was joking and so I laughed… oh how I laughed. He asked four times in total - the last being the more serious and sterner of the four.

I soon realised that he was in fact absolutely serious. I also realised that so was I. So we went to the bar for a celebratory drink before heading home to tell the dog, phone my parents (who were on holiday abroad at the time), phone the rest of the family and phone the vicar.

In the July of the following year 2005, a year after our first meeting, we were married!

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I really enjoyed your story. Thank you for sharing :star_struck:

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I enjoyed reading your story @CatrinLliarJones which reminded me of my own experience involving an encounter with the police while driving in a state of dishabillé. I was returning home early in the morning after a night of fishing for sewin on the River Hodder in Lancashire. I had stumbled over a stone, fallen in, and was soaked to the skin. I usually carry a change of clothing in my car, but on this occasion only had dry underpants to put on so was rather embarrassed to be stooped by a female police officer who asked me where I was going. She went on to explain that, as there had been an accident, I should take an alternative route. She didn’t ask any other questions and didn’t even blink which made me wonder if this was normal behaviour for Lancashire. … No we didn’t end up getting married!

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What a fabulous story! You have helped inspire today’s word(s) choice…

Heddlu [heth-lee] = the police (not the band)
Heddwas [heth-wass] police officer
Plismon [pliss-monn] - police officer
Plismona [pliss-monn-na] - to police
Trosedd [tross-seth] = crime
Troseddwr [tross-seth-thoor] = criminal
Troseddu [tross-sethee] = to commit a crime
Torri’r gyfraith [toreer guv-raith] = to break the law
Cyhuddo [cuh-hith-though] = to accuse or to charge

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:joy::rofl::joy:
I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time but really did make me laugh

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Another suggestion for a possible theme: Welsh names for wildflowers. I have just learnt ‘llygad Ebrill’ for lesser celandine (it comes in Manon Steffan Ros’s ‘Llanw’), eye of April, I like that.

Lovely idea! We have a lot of comings and goings as a family this week, so I’ll tackle this properly nest week. Diolch! :smiley:

In the meantime…

Saib = sah-eeb - a rest, pause or break
Seibiant [saib+iant] = seh-eeb-yant - as above
Gorffwys = gore-foo-iss - to rest

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Am I ‘reaching’ a bit to wonder if trosedd is linked to the idea of ‘crossing a line’? (Even if there is no real etymological connection, it’s a handy way of remembering the word and what it means.)

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Just checked the GPC & you’re right - traws ‘across’, & the -edd bit just makes it into an abstract noun.
But it’s the same in English / Latin ‘transgress(ion)’ – ‘trans’ = traws, and ‘gress’ is related to words meaning ‘step’ or ‘go’ – ingress, progress, egress, going in, forwards, or out.

ETA : the ‘gress’ bit is related to gris(iau) ‘steps’ as well as to gradd which is a step up, educationally speaking.

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Word of the Day - 02/07/2019

So sorry for the delay, we’ve been away for a long weekend. But back by the laptop today…

Ok, here goes… :sunflower: :wilted_flower: :blossom::rose::tulip::cherry_blossom::white_flower::bouquet::hibiscus:

Llygad y dydd = llugg-add err-deeth - daisy
Dant y llew = dant err lleh-oo - dandelion
Blodyn menyn = blod-inn mennin - buttercup
Bysedd y cwn = bus-eth err koon - foxglove
Blodyn neidr = blod-inn nay-drr - red campion

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That should be easy to remember as daisy comes from “day’s eye”. Simple works for me. Thank you!

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