Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Is naws a bit like ‘nuance’ in English, a sort of feeling of how things are…?

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Have you got a context for where naws is being used? That will help pinpoint the meaning.

Naci is a shortened form of nac ydy - often used as an informal tag or indeed as a short ‘no’ answer.

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I’ll have to look in a book I’m reading when I get home tonight, where I know it cropped up “Porth Y Byddar” by Manon Eames. I’ve come across it in other books as well “Straeon Y dafarn” (Dewi Pws and others).

Nac Ydy - of course, I feel really really twp now, didn’t connect that at all

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don’t feel twp - I still get tripped up by things like that all the time. E.g, it took me ages to work out what o.g.y.dd in an email meant. :relaxed:

(_O_s _G_welwch _Y_n _DD_a for those that haven’t come across it yet!)

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I think it doesn’t matter (though I’m far from an authority). You would certainly be understood either way.

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I’ve heard “naws” used quite frequently on TV programmes like 4 Wal where it seems to refer to the atmosphere or ambiance of a building. Don’t know whether that helps.

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Nope, not at all… :slight_smile:

@toffidil - yup, some context would probably make it easier to help with this - in general, I’d offer ‘atmosphere’ as the first point of call for ‘naws’, and something like ‘isn’t it?’ for ‘nac ydi/nacie’ (although you’ll also hear ‘naci’ as a kind ‘don’t!’ sort of thing).

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I had sort of got the impression that “naci” was the gog version of the non-gog “nage”, and could be used as a general purpose “no”.

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You’ll definitely hear it being used like that… :slight_smile:

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Thanks, my gut feel now is that atmosphere would fit really well, with the stories I’ve been reading, but will dig out an example tonight. Thanks for the answer, ditto to the replies from Siaron,Margaret and Henddraig - I know that I wouldn’t got there on my own on this one - despite it actually being in the long list of dictionary meanings.

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didn’t know that either and if I’d looked it up as a word - as I just did for a bit of fun, I would have found that ogyddio is the mutated form of a word that has the most bizaare definition I have ever seen:

gogyddio - “to dress mill-stones with a mill-pick”.

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certainly not a verb we’d come across often these days! :sweat_smile:

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We’ve all done it.

:wink:

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Some of my ancestors did that! I didn’t realise it had a word of its own!

what does it mean?

To cut a stone from, i suppose, block to rough circle to proper circle , drill hole through middle and smooth it. I presume. My ancestors were stone masons! I am not! They graduated from cutting in quarry to dressing for building. Then my great grandfather seems to have decided skilled woodworkers got inside more and apprenticed my grandfather to a carpenter-joiner, so any stone dressing for any purpose was a looo…oooong time ago!

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Well I would never have guessed that and I’ve learned something new in English now as well - diolch

I told you I was guessing! I finally looked up ‘mill-pick’ and it is the implement used at the end of the process to give the mill stone a corrugated surface able to mill the grain exceeding small!!! So that is the part with it’s own name yn Gymraeg - gogyddio. It is the one part of the process I doubt any of my stone cutting ancestors did!

Once, well, more than once long ago, I hated being taunted by a verse that said, “Taffi is a Welshman, Taffi is a thief…” I knew it wasn’t true,but… Anyway, when I eventually learned thword ‘cymryd’ I was shocked! I was back in that playground! Was our whole nation labelled as ‘takers’? Does anyone know the derivation of Cymru, Cymreig, Cymro, ans Cymryd?

I think this is the general opinion.
From this site: origin and history of the names ‘Wales’ and ‘Cymru’ – word histories (if you want to read the whole thing)

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