|
 |
Etymology of pirate | ||
Tags: Etymology | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6665 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes  Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 9 of 13 23 February 2009 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
German has "Feuer" as a generic term for fire, and "Brand" for destructive fire, e.g. forest fire is "Waldbrand" and not "Waldfeuer". French does the same with "feu" and "incendie" (both of which have cognates in the other Romance languages I know). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| krog Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6049 days ago 146 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Latin | Message 10 of 13 23 February 2009 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Levels of good/bad in English fire: Inferno or firestorm - really bad, an entire city burning or a building burning really fiercely, probably causing death/injury. May 'rage'. Wildfire - spreads quickly and destroys property, does not necessarily kill Blaze - can be good or bad - a hearty blaze = a roaring fire (in eg the house the Railway Children originally lived in) or: the firefighters struggled to tackle the blaze, which soon ran out of control and gutted the house (possibly causing death or injury, but quite a good chance the inhabitants escaped). Fire - good or bad - a cheery little campfire or: the fire cost many lives (?when the word fire is used in a negative sense, it refers to a historical event?). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 13 24 February 2009 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Swedish makes the distinction too:
Fire in general: "eld" - or an older word "fyr" connecting nicely with English "fire" and the Greek word mentioned above. A destructive fire: "brand" or "eldsvåda". Spanish makes the distinction, as I imagine do most romance languages (as Marc mentions above): fuego - fire incendio - destructive fire Finnish has even more detailed distinctions: tuli - fire (neutral, for any fire) valkea (lit. "white") - fire (ofen used about a controlled fire, set on purpose and for a purpose, eg. a campfire) tulipalo, palo - destructive fire (related to the verb palaa = burn) kulo - wildfire (and probably a couple more that I can't think of right now) Edited by Hencke on 24 February 2009 at 1:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 12 of 13 26 February 2009 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Now I realize that my argument was rather hasty, English actually has a variety of words for describing (non)destructive fires. Wildfire is just a compound, though. Camp-fire and fire-storm fall in the same category. Perhaps "blaze" is the closest alternative.
That's an important distinction of terms, I was ignorant. Edited by Sennin on 26 February 2009 at 8:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| krog Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6049 days ago 146 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Latin | Message 13 of 13 26 February 2009 at 10:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wildfire means something other than just 'a fire that is wild', it's either a forest fire or a fast-moving fire. A firestorm is pretty much 'a storm of fire'. I wonder if there are any other words for fire that exist in English dialects, or that have fallen out of usage? 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
