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Days of Wine Flights and Mullets (full episode)
Guest
21
2009/02/18 - 6:26pm

boulevard
1769, from Fr., originally “top surface of a military rampart,” from a garbled attempt to adopt M.Du. bolwerc “wall of a fortification” (see bulwark) into Fr., which lacks a -w-. The original notion is of a promenade laid out atop demolished city walls, which would be much wider than urban streets. Originally in Eng. with conscious echoes of Paris; since 1929, in U.S., used of multi-lane limited-access urban highways.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=boulevard&searchmode=none

The strip of grass in the center of the street makes more sense
as that would be a raised footpath with limited access (cars could not access).
In any case,
a boulevard is a major thoroughfare the sort of street wide enough to be divided.

I wonder if "Bully" is related.
After all, conquering Romans a top broken walls is dominating.

bully (n.)
1538, originally "sweetheart," applied to either sex, from Du. boel "lover, brother," probably dim. of M.H.G. buole "brother," of uncertain origin (cf. Ger. buhle "lover"). Meaning deteriorated 17c. through "fine fellow," "blusterer," to "harasser of the weak" (1653). Perhaps this was by infl. of bull, but a connecting sense between "lover" and "ruffian" may be in "protector of a prostitute," which was one sense of bully (though not specifically attested until 1706). The verb is first attested 1710. The expression meaning "worthy, jolly, admirable" (esp. in 1864 U.S. slang bully for you!) is first attested 1681, and preserves an earlier, positive sense of the word.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=bully&searchmode=none

Nope

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
(Offline)
22
2009/02/19 - 12:33pm

zombieamelia, thanks for that one. I hadn't heard it. 🙂

Guest
23
2009/03/26 - 5:30pm

Re: "devil strip" (or "devil's strip") - here's a sighting in the wild, just today:

March 26, 2009 Crankshaft comic strip

Guest
24
2009/04/01 - 12:15am

Hello Martha and Grant,
I'm a huge fan of your show. Thank you for brightening the airwaves with your language discussions.
I have a word I'd like to share with you and your readers. It is one of my favorite German words: 'Vokuhila'. Although it sounds like it might be the name of a lesser Norse god, it actually stands for "vorne kurz, hinten lang" and describes what we call a mullet! Translation: short in the front, long in the back.

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
(Offline)
25
2009/04/02 - 10:55am

>>> Re: “devil strip” (or “devil's strip”) - here's a sighting in the wild, just today:

Oooo, oooo, good catch, dilettante. And need we be surprised that the strip's creator, Tom Batiuk, is from . . . wait for it . . . Akron, Ohio?

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
(Offline)
26
2009/04/02 - 10:57am

I have a word I'd like to share with you and your readers. It is one of my favorite German words: ‘Vokuhila'. Although it sounds like it might be the name of a lesser Norse god, it actually stands for “vorne kurz, hinten lang” and describes what we call a mullet! Translation: short in the front, long in the back.

Very nice, Rhino1515! Hadn't heard that one. And thanks for the kind words!

Guest
27
2009/04/10 - 2:42pm

I thought the boulevard was the strip of grass dividing two lanes of traffic on an actual Blvd.

Amelia

That's the neutral ground. Added to my lexicon via a buddy from NOLA.

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
(Offline)
28
2009/04/11 - 3:19pm

Wonder why that strip of grass has SO many different words for it?

Guest
29
2009/12/25 - 3:48am

MarcNaimark said:

An odd thing about the French for “to fall in love” is that the French French version is indeed “tomber amoureux” (”amoureux” being an adjective meaning “in love”). But in Quebec, they say “tomber en amour”. I had always assumed that this was simply due to the influence of English on Quebec French.


Martha, Grant, hi!

Not doubting that "falling in love" is a translation from the French, as Grant mentioned, I believe there is more to it than just falling-in-another-language. There is an interesting aspect to the verb tomber, according to an etymological dictionary: "étymologie: XIIe siècle. Avec le sens de danser, sauter, faire la culbute (voir l'anglais tumble)". The original French expression "tomber amoureux (amoureuse for a female)" could thus mean "to danse (leap, skip, somersault, tumble) enamouredly or amorously" – i.e. not falling in love so much as dancing since, while, because in love. In translation, an unintentional or even jocular shift in meaning might have taken place from the state of being in love (12th c. French) to an actual or metaphorical falling, head over heels, helplessly in love. Although this doesn't explain the modern meaning of the French expression, which seems to correspond to its English counterpart…

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