51吃瓜 of the Day
More about gabelle
The rare noun gabelle 鈥渁 tax on salt鈥� comes from Anglo-French (the variety of French used in England after the Norman Conquest) and other Romance languages and dialects from Late and Medieval Latin gabella 鈥渢ax, salt tax.鈥� Gabella derives ultimately from Arabic 辩补产腻濒补 鈥渢ax, duty, impost.鈥� There is an understandable confusion in form and meaning between gabelle “a tax on salt,” and gavel 鈥渇eudal rent, tribute to a superior.鈥� Gavel comes from Old English gafol, a noun that dates from about 725, occurs only in Old English, and derives from the same Germanic root as the verb give.听Gabelle entered English in the 15th century.
how is gabelle used?
In 1355, the successor of Philip of Valois, John II of France, imposed a gabelle on salt, and again doubled the tax, so that it then rose to eight deniers upon the pound.
They paid a gabelle in order to wear a forbidden ornament and did their best to interfere with the enforcement of the law.
conlang
noun
an artificially constructed language used by a group of speakers, as opposed to one that has naturally evolved:聽conlangs such as Esperanto and Klingon.
More about conlang
Conlang, a blend of con(structed) and lang(uage), dates only from around 1991, but the idea of an artificially constructed international auxiliary language has been around since at least the second half of the 19th century. The most famous of these 19th-century conlangs is Esperanto (invented in 1887); other such languages include Volap眉k (invented about 1879). Twentieth-century conlangs include Ido, derived from Esperanto and developed in 1907; Interlingua (developed between 1924 and 1951); and the half dozen or so languages that J.R.R. Tolkien invented for his trilogy Lord of the Rings. Speakers of conlangs聽range from those who would like to see them聽in wide use, e.g., Esperanto, to the aficionados of sci-fi conventions, who delight in the extravagances of, say, Klingon.
how is conlang used?
A good conlang takes time to develop, and a conlanger who works on their own has all the time in the world.
… I want figurative language. I鈥檝e been pushing for this in Klingon for 20 years. Because if you really are driving your conlang, then you should be able to use metaphors in that language and be understood.
More about tootle
Tootle, an English frequentative verb from the verb toot, means 鈥渢o keep tooting.鈥� Frequentative in grammar and linguistics means 鈥減ertaining to a verb that expresses repetition of an action.鈥� In the Slavic languages, e.g., Polish and Russian, frequentative verbs are very common, very complex, and very vexing for the learner. Latin has 肠补苍迟腻谤别 鈥渢o keep singing,鈥� the source of chant, a frequentative of canere, the 鈥減lain鈥� verb meaning 鈥渢o sing鈥�; and 惫颈蝉颈迟腻谤别 鈥渢o keep seeing, call upon, visit,鈥� a frequentative of 惫颈诲脓谤别 鈥渢o see.鈥� Frequentative verbs are no longer productive in English, which uses only –er and –le as frequentative suffixes, as in patter from pat, putter from putt, crackle from crack, and tootle from toot. Tootle entered English in the 19th century.
how is tootle used?
Dash responded with the message 鈥淵ay!鈥� and a winsome shimmy, then tootled off at one and a half miles an hour鈥攎aybe in search of someone鈥檚 job.
Behind them, the band Kiss tootled down the street on a black float, in its trademark makeup.