I think English may not be this headline writer's first language ...

Post by Java Jive
Ukrainian Tanks Bonk Hard
http://youtu.be/-OQSMJY_OrE

I suppose you could argue that the gun barrel of a tank is a phallic
symbol. I remember a famous music video in which Cher seemed to see the
barrel of a warship's gun as being one.

I think that "bonk" could well also have a meaning of "hit". ISTR when I
was a child we would say things like "he bonked me on the head".

Post by Java Jive
I haven't watched the video, because that particular pro-Ukrainian
channel is not very well voiced, but the headline reminded me of the
Q: How do hedgehogs mate?
A: Carefully!

--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

Brian Gregory

2024-02-01 18:20:37 UTC

Post by John Hall
I think that "bonk" could well also have a meaning of "hit". ISTR when I
was a child we would say things like "he bonked me on the head".

Yes same here. Hit and/or the sound a hit makes.

--
Brian Gregory (in England).

John Hall

2024-02-01 19:14:44 UTC

Post by Brian Gregory

Post by John Hall
I think that "bonk" could well also have a meaning of "hit". ISTR
when I was a child we would say things like "he bonked me on the head".

Yes same here. Hit and/or the sound a hit makes.

I looked it up in my Concise Oxford, and "a resounding hit" was the
first definition it gave, with the sexual one given afterwards. But my
edition is about forty years old, and a more modern one might well have
them the other way round. I suspect that the sexual meaning might be the
only one that most younger people know.

--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

2024-02-02 20:30:55 UTC

Post by John Hall

Post by Brian Gregory

Post by John Hall
I think that "bonk" could well also have a meaning of "hit". ISTR
when I was a child we would say things like "he bonked me on the head".

Yes same here. Hit and/or the sound a hit makes.

It's like other words that have changed their meanings. "Gay", for
example. There was a teacher (born 1955, Findmypast tells me) at my
school when I was in the sixth form in 1980. Those who knew what her
initial G stood for, knew she was called Gay (and Findmypast says it
*was* Gay, and not Gaynor). Even back then, there were sniggers. I
wonder what she calls herself nowadays.

2024-02-02 20:38:43 UTC

Post by NY
It's like other words that have changed their meanings. "Gay", for
example. There was a teacher (born 1955, Findmypast tells me) at my
school when I was in the sixth form in 1980. Those who knew what her
initial G stood for, knew she was called Gay (and Findmypast says it
*was* Gay, and not Gaynor). Even back then, there were sniggers. I
wonder what she calls herself nowadays.

Interesting, Findmypast shows the forename Gay being used, almost
exclusively as a middle name, as recently as 2005. Some of those may be
be a family surname (eg mother's/grandmother's maiden name), given that
there are some men.

Blueshirt

2024-02-02 20:48:18 UTC

Post by NY
It's like other words that have changed their meanings. "Gay",
for example. There was a teacher (born 1955, Findmypast tells
me) at my school when I was in the sixth form in 1980. Those who
knew what her initial G stood for, knew she was called Gay (and
Findmypast says it was Gay, and not Gaynor). Even back then,
there were sniggers. I wonder what she calls herself nowadays.

Interesting, Findmypast shows the forename Gay being used, almost
exclusively as a middle name, as recently as 2005. Some of those
may be be a family surname (eg mother's/grandmother's maiden name),
given that there are some men.

In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened version of
Gabriel.

Of course, people naming their little boys Gabriel seems to be on the
decline over here now.

"Playing gayly" meant a [very] different thing in the 1970's too!!!

charles

2024-02-02 21:08:03 UTC

Post by NY
It's like other words that have changed their meanings. "Gay",
for example. There was a teacher (born 1955, Findmypast tells
me) at my school when I was in the sixth form in 1980. Those who
knew what her initial G stood for, knew she was called Gay (and
Findmypast says it was Gay, and not Gaynor). Even back then,
there were sniggers. I wonder what she calls herself nowadays.

Interesting, Findmypast shows the forename Gay being used, almost
exclusively as a middle name, as recently as 2005. Some of those
may be be a family surname (eg mother's/grandmother's maiden name),
given that there are some men.

In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened version of
Gabriel.
Of course, people naming their little boys Gabriel seems to be on the
decline over here now.
"Playing gayly" meant a [very] different thing in the 1970's too!!!

and .. there's the Scottish Country Dance: "The Gay Gordons".

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

2024-02-02 23:43:16 UTC

Post by Blueshirt
In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened version of
Gabriel.

Ah, so that's the reason for Gay Byrne's name.

Blueshirt

2024-02-03 00:16:18 UTC

Post by Blueshirt
In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened version
of Gabriel.

Ah, so that's the reason for Gay Byrne's name.

Yes. It's Gabriel Byrne... and his middle name was "Mary".

Really!!!

2024-02-03 00:52:43 UTC

Post by Blueshirt
In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened version
of Gabriel.

Ah, so that's the reason for Gay Byrne's name.

Yes. It's Gabriel Byrne... and his middle name was "Mary".

Not that I didn't believe you, but I checked in Wikipedia :-)

I've always wondered what the logic is in giving a boy an obviously
female middle name. OK, we're into "Boy Named Sue" territory. France
does it a lot: Jean-Marie Le Pen (French politician) is an example.

It's interesting how the gender of names changes over the years. I tend
to think of Evelyn and Hilary as being almost exclusively female names,
Waugh and Benn notwithstanding. Likewise I think of Sidney as being
exclusively male, but I once met a woman - probably in her 80s and I
think from Canada - with that name. I knew a woman at work called
Laurence (stress on second syllable) but she was French and for all I
know it's a female name there. Obviously you've got the names which are
either: Leslie (male, apart from Ash) and Lesley (female), Kim, Ashley.

Blueshirt

2024-02-03 01:22:27 UTC

Post by Blueshirt
In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened
version of Gabriel.

Ah, so that's the reason for Gay Byrne's name.

Yes. It's Gabriel Byrne... and his middle name was "Mary".

Not that I didn't believe you, but I checked in Wikipedia :-)

I did say "Really!!!"

Plus there is another Gabriel Byrne [the actor] hence one was always
referred to simply as "Gay".

Post by NY
I've always wondered what the logic is in giving a boy an obviously
female middle name. OK, we're into "Boy Named Sue" territory.
France does it a lot: Jean-Marie Le Pen (French politician) is an
example.

John Wayne was another, as that was a stage name in his case.
"Marion" was his actual name.

Really!!! ;-)

In Ireland names like Gabriel and boys having "Mary" as a middle name
are mainly down to religion, plus what I like to call 'simpler times'.

2024-02-03 09:34:54 UTC

John Wayne was another, as that was a stage name in his case.
"Marion" was his actual name.

Ah, now I did know that one. And Big Daddy's real name was Shirley Crabtree.

I wonder whether their parents were very cruel, or whether Marion and
Shirley were both-gender names at one time. My grandma was called
Marion, so it was evidently regarded as a female name as far back as the
1910s and wasn't an exclusively male name that has become exclusively
female over time.

And then you've got the US actor Mandy Patinkin. You'd think he'd have
chosen to shorten his real name Mandel to something that isn't an
abbreviation of the female name Amanda.

Java Jive

2024-02-03 11:18:41 UTC

Post by NY
I wonder whether their parents were very cruel, or whether Marion and
Shirley were both-gender names at one time. My grandma was called
Marion, so it was evidently regarded as a female name as far back as the
1910s and wasn't an exclusively male name that has become exclusively
female over time.

Apparently at one time Shirley was a man's name. Charlotte Bronte wrote
a book called Shirley, in which it is commented that the eponymous
heroine, who doesn't actually make her appearance until page 269, is
called such because there had been no male child:

https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-bronte/shirley/

"Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents,
who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of
marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her
the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if
with a boy they had been blessed)"

Charlotte Bronte's writing style is perhaps somewhat too idiosyncratic
to recommend to others with confidence, and anyway of course personal
tastes are by definition personal, but I like Shirley. I rate it as
Charlotte's second best book, after the semi-autobiographical Villette.
The more famous Jane Eyre I like only third. Perhaps the book was the
beginning of Shirley's use as a female forename? (I haven't bothered to
search for any actual evidence for that, it's just a passing thought.)

Of course it's also historically & currently a surname, including IIRC
someone historically famous in the English aristocracy, though searches
couldn't nail down my vague memory beyond there being both a medieval
scribe and an aristocrat in the court of Henry VIII, neither of which
gentlemen chimes with my all too vague memory.

--
Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

John Hall

2024-02-03 19:06:15 UTC

Perhaps the book was the beginning of Shirley's use as a female
forename? (I haven't bothered to search for any actual evidence for
that, it's just a passing thought.)

Could be. I believe Lorna only became a name after "Lorna Doone" was
published. I think Wendy as a name in its own right, rather than as an
abbreviation for Gwendolyn, may only have started being used after
"Peter Pan" appeared.

--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

JMB99

2024-02-03 22:27:42 UTC

Post by John Hall
Could be. I believe Lorna only became a name after "Lorna Doone" was
published. I think Wendy as a name in its own right, rather than as an
abbreviation for Gwendolyn, may only have started being used after
"Peter Pan" appeared.

https://www.behindthename.com/name/lorna

"Created by the author R. D. Blackmore for the title character in his
novel Lorna Doone (1869), set in southern England, which describes the
dangerous love between John Ridd and Lorna Doone. Blackmore may have
based the name on the Scottish place name Lorne or on the title Marquis
of Lorne"

Java Jive

2024-02-04 11:55:18 UTC

Post by Java Jive
Perhaps the book was the
beginning of Shirley's use as a female forename? (I haven't bothered to
search for any actual evidence for that, it's just a passing thought.)

Well, I might have bothered, I didn't have to look far ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(name)

"Shirley is a given name and a surname originating from the English
place-name Shirley, which is derived from the Old English elements scire
("shire") or scīr ("bright, clear") and lēah ("wood, clearing, meadow,
enclosure"). The name makes reference to the open space where the moot
(an early English assembly of freemen which met to administer justice
and discuss community issues) was held. The surname Shirley became
established as a female given name in 1849 due to its use in Charlotte
Brontë's novel Shirley, in which the character explains that her parents
had intended the family surname for a son. It was further popularized in
1851–52 by its pseudonymous use by California Gold Rush writer Louise
Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (Dame Shirley). It was eventually brought to
its highest popularity, in the 1930s, by the fame of child star Shirley
Temple.[1] [2]"

... and who, who has seen it, can forget Stanley Baxter's send up of
Shirley Temple (even if they should wish to):

Sorry about that, but at least it brings the thread back OT for the
group :-)

--
Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

John Hall

2024-02-03 19:03:12 UTC

John Wayne was another, as that was a stage name in his case.
"Marion" was his actual name.

Ah, now I did know that one. And Big Daddy's real name was Shirley Crabtree.
I wonder whether their parents were very cruel, or whether Marion and
Shirley were both-gender names at one time. My grandma was called
Marion, so it was evidently regarded as a female name as far back as
the 1910s and wasn't an exclusively male name that has become
exclusively female over time.
And then you've got the US actor Mandy Patinkin. You'd think he'd have
chosen to shorten his real name Mandel to something that isn't an
abbreviation of the female name Amanda.

Hilary used to be a both-gender name, I believe. And it used to be
Leslie for boys and Lesley for girls, but I think some girls are named
Leslie nowadays.

--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

2024-02-04 10:36:19 UTC

John Wayne was another, as that was a stage name in his case.
"Marion" was his actual name.

Ah, now I did know that one. And Big Daddy's real name was Shirley Crabtree.
I wonder whether their parents were very cruel, or whether Marion and
Shirley were both-gender names at one time. My grandma was called Marion,
so it was evidently regarded as a female name as far back as the 1910s and
wasn't an exclusively male name that has become exclusively female over
time.
And then you've got the US actor Mandy Patinkin. You'd think he'd have
chosen to shorten his real name Mandel to something that isn't an
abbreviation of the female name Amanda.

Hilary used to be a both-gender name, I believe. And it used to be Leslie
for boys and Lesley for girls, but I think some girls are named Leslie
nowadays.

I wonder what causes a name to shift gender over time. I imagine there
aren't any/many boy babies called Hilary or Beverley or Shirley nowadays
(and probably very few girls - but that's down to names going in and out of
fashion). Certainly I think of all those as been female - people of my
parent's generation who are now in their 70s and 80s. Sidney and Gareth as
girls' names is even more strange but maybe it was more common in days gone
by.

I hadn't realised that Lorna was originally a made-up name for Lorna Doone.
I'd heard that Wendy as a name in its own right (as opposed to an
abbreviation of Gwendolyn) was devised by J M Barrie for Peter Pan, but I
wasn't sure whether that was true or a myth.

Then you get "throwback names" - babies who are named after someone famous.
I imagine in the 1980s there were a lot of Kylies and Dianas. My dad is
called Nigel because he was born on the day that Mallard set the word speed
record for pulling a steam train, and my grandpa, a railway enthusiast,
named dad after Sir Nigel Gresley who designed Mallard.

Names go in cycles. Names like Elsie used to be thought of as "grandmother's
names" but now they have come back into fashion. Hopefully Ethel and
Gertrude won't see a resurgence.

Java Jive

2024-02-04 11:36:34 UTC

Hopefully Ethel and Gertrude won't see a resurgence.

Still less Egbertha, Clothilde, Euphemia, Benedicta ...

Back in my family there were two generations, two great great aunts and
a daughter of one of them, of Adas, short for Adelaide. Curious as to
the reason for this sudden appearance of this new name into the family,
I looked it up. Apparently it's from the German, literal meaning
something like "Eagle head" which is usually translated as something
like "noble-minded". As to the sudden appearance within the family,
there was a Saxe-Meiningen Princess Adelaide who married William IV, and
so in time became Queen Adelaide, whom the British public thought very
well of for her charity and moral rectitude, and the timing is perfect
as an explanation for the sudden popularity of the name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide_of_Saxe-Meiningen

So, no, they weren't named after an Australian city! In fact of course
the city got its name the same way as the Adas.

--
Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

2024-02-04 11:50:42 UTC

Post by Java Jive

Hopefully Ethel and Gertrude won't see a resurgence.

Still less Egbertha, Clothilde, Euphemia, Benedicta ...
Back in my family there were two generations, two great great aunts and
a daughter of one of them, of Adas, short for Adelaide. Curious as to
the reason for this sudden appearance of this new name into the family,
I looked it up. Apparently it's from the German, literal meaning
something like "Eagle head" which is usually translated as something
like "noble-minded". As to the sudden appearance within the family,
there was a Saxe-Meiningen Princess Adelaide who married William IV, and
so in time became Queen Adelaide, whom the British public thought very
well of for her charity and moral rectitude, and the timing is perfect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide_of_Saxe-Meiningen
So, no, they weren't named after an Australian city! In fact of course
the city got its name the same way as the Adas.

Duh! It had never occurred to me that Adele / Adelaide was derived from
the German word Adler meaning eagle.

Clothilde and Egbertha. Whatever next? Clitoris (pronounced ClitORis, if
you remember the girls-in-the-pub conversation in Shirley Valentine).

Java Jive

2024-02-04 12:14:49 UTC

Post by NY
Clothilde and Egbertha. Whatever next? Clitoris (pronounced ClitORis, if
you remember the girls-in-the-pub conversation in Shirley Valentine).

Somehow I don't think he would have been such a star had be been called
Clit Eastwood.

--
Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive

2024-02-04 12:47:00 UTC

Post by Java Jive
Somehow I don't think he would have been such a star had be been called
Clit Eastwood.

This reminds me of a rather politically incorrect joke by my favourite
comedian, Derek Brimstone ...

A song'n'dance man wants to make it good in Show Biz, and goes to see an
agent. After showing what he could do, the agent says:

"Yes, that's pretty good stuff, I think you might make it, but you must
change your name!"

"Penis Van Lesbian?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, but I just can't sell you with that name! You'll have
to change it!"

But the man doesn't want to change his name, so they part company
amicably enough. Years later, they bump into each other at a Show Biz do.

"Oh! It's you! How yer doin? Did you ever make it good?!"

"Yeah! I'm doin' really well now, becoming something of a star. You
were right though, I *DID* have to change my name!"

"Well, yes it was inevitable really, so what yer callin' yerself now?"

"Dick Van Dyke!"

--
Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

JMB99

2024-02-03 15:23:31 UTC

Post by NY
I've always wondered what the logic is in giving a boy an obviously
female middle name. OK, we're into "Boy Named Sue" territory. France
does it a lot: Jean-Marie Le Pen (French politician) is an example.

Is it something to do with Roman Catholics having to have a Saint's name
when Christened.

jon

2024-02-11 11:57:52 UTC

Post by Blueshirt
In Ireland "Gay" - as a name - was often used a shortened version of
Gabriel.

Ah, so that's the reason for Gay Byrne's name.

Yes. It's Gabriel Byrne... and his middle name was "Mary".

Not that I didn't believe you, but I checked in Wikipedia :-)
I've always wondered what the logic is in giving a boy an obviously
female middle name. OK, we're into "Boy Named Sue" territory. France
does it a lot: Jean-Marie Le Pen (French politician) is an example.
It's interesting how the gender of names changes over the years. I tend
to think of Evelyn and Hilary as being almost exclusively female names,
Waugh and Benn notwithstanding. Likewise I think of Sidney as being
exclusively male, but I once met a woman - probably in her 80s and I
think from Canada - with that name. I knew a woman at work called
Laurence (stress on second syllable) but she was French and for all I
know it's a female name there. Obviously you've got the names which are
either: Leslie (male, apart from Ash) and Lesley (female), Kim, Ashley.

I always thought the child as born Hermaphrodite.

2024-02-02 23:48:37 UTC

Post by Blueshirt
"Playing gayly" meant a [very] different thing in the 1970's too!!!

When did "gay" start to be used in its modern male-homosexual sense?
Must have been by 1980 if everyone was sniggering about Miss H's
closely-guarded first name at school.

I wonder how many baby girls will be called Karen now, with its modern
connotation of a perpetually-complaining "I want to speak to the
manager" person.

John Hall

2024-02-02 21:53:50 UTC

Post by John Hall

Post by Brian Gregory

Post by John Hall
I think that "bonk" could well also have a meaning of "hit". ISTR
when I was a child we would say things like "he bonked me on the head".

Yes same here. Hit and/or the sound a hit makes.

I looked it up in my Concise Oxford, and "a resounding hit" was the
first definition it gave, with the sexual one given afterwards. But my
edition is about forty years old, and a more modern one might well
have them the other way round. I suspect that the sexual meaning
might be the only one that most younger people know.

Talking of words changing their meanings, I remember in the 1960s my
English teacher complained about "nice" being used to mean pleasant
rather than exact. I was amused a year or so later, when our English
Literature set novel was "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen - published
in 1818 - to discover a character making exactly the same complaint. So
people had been making the same complaint for 150 years.

--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

John Hall

2024-02-03 19:08:19 UTC

Post by John Hall
Talking of words changing their meanings, I remember in the 1960s my
English teacher complained about "nice" being used to mean pleasant
rather than exact. I was amused a year or so later, when our English
Literature set novel was "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen - published
in 1818 - to discover a character making exactly the same complaint. So
people had been making the same complaint for 150 years.

I had a senior moment. ""Nice" never meant exact. It meant subtle or
fine, as in "a nice (fine) distinction".

--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

Andy Burns

2024-02-01 11:05:29 UTC

Post by Java Jive
I haven't watched the video

The "cope cages" don't seem to protect Russian tanks much ...

Java Jive

2024-02-01 12:54:24 UTC