Moonbroughs, déjà-entendu and balderdash syndrome |
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MOST POPULAR THIS WEEK MOONBROUGH Most popular on HH this week was the word moonbrough, a suitably evocative word for a halo of cloud encircling the moon. That –ough is always a bit of a puzzler, but if you’re wondering how to pronounce it here, regrettably it’s all a bit mystery: none of the HH source dictionaries offer any suggested pronunciations, and even looking a bit deeper into the word’s history throws up nothing conclusive. For one, some source dictionaries here call this kind of halo a bruff, which would place moonbrough in with the same –ough group as the likes of tough and rough. Others call these encircling lunar clouds burrs, or burrows, the latter of which would throw moonborough in with the likes of though or dough. Moonborough itself comes from the Old Norse borg, meaning “enclosure”; the word borough comes from the same root, so perhaps its pronunciation should best match that? But then again, the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that in northern English dialects, moonbrough would be pronounced with a rasping –ough, like the sound in loch, or lough. Confused? You’re not the only one. But the good news is, it seems no matter how you choose to pronounce moonborough, you’ll probably be perfectly right to do so... Elsewhere this week we found out: |
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POPULAR THIS WEEK DÉJÀ VIEW Got a sneaking suspicion you might have heard something before? That’s déjà-entendu, the oft-overlooked cousin of déjà-vu. We tweeted about déjà-entendu earlier this week, and it quickly became one of the week’s most popular facts. French speakers out there will know that while déjà-vu literally means “already seen”, déjà-entendu means “already heard”. So when some tiresome anecdotard is telling you the same weary old story, at least you’ll have a word to accompany your tired eyeroll... But déjà-vu and déjà-entendu are just the tip of the déjà iceberg here. As well as eerily already seeing and hearing things, you can experience déjà-visité, a curious phenomenon often encountered by tourists who can easily navigate their way around places they’ve never been before; no prizes for guessing that it literally means “already visited”. Déjà-rêvé popped up on HH not so long ago, and refers quite literally to the sensation of dreaming the same thing twice. And let’s not forget that the criminally underused opposite of déjà-vu is jamais-vu, or “never seen”—the peculiar feeling that something you’ve done countless times before is entirely new to you. |
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POPULAR THIS WEEK ABSOLUTE BALDERDASH On Wednesday, we tweeted about balderdash syndrome, a rare psychological disorder in which sufferers give ludicrous answers to simple, everyday questions. Also known as both the “syndrome of approximate answers” and Ganser syndrome (in honour of the German psychiatrist Sigbert Ganser, who first described in 1898), balderdash syndrome is a peculiar phenomenon. When asked questions, sufferers don’t just give random answers that don’t fit with the questions at all (“What is 2 + 2?” / “Monday”), but rather answers that lie just outside of correct (“What is 2 + 2?” / “5”). This is seen as an indication that they have understood the question, but have for whatever reason opted to respond with something they know to be wrong. What sparks it? It’s a mystery. But given that a majority of cases occur among prisoners—so many, in fact, that balderdash syndrome is also sometimes known as “prison psychosis”—it’s thought that a desire to appear damaged or weak-willed, and thereby illicit sympathy from the questioner, may be at its root. |
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AND FINALLY... ANAGRAMS #27 Four more tricky anagrams to round things off this week: each of the words below can be rearranged to spell another much more familiar dictionary word. What are they? SARMENT BODEMENT ALIGNMENT REPINEMENT Last week’s solution: SUNSHADE, TAUTNESS, UNDERPAYS, SUBALTERN |
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