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#Post#: 12258--------------------------------------------------
Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: NealC
Date: February 8, 2019, 9:51 am
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Some shots of some very brave little flowers, coming up in
February.
[img width=300
height=168]
HTML https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/s2048x2048/51454203_558678794612394_5314925967561457664_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=f871f3e32654784e520fcafec746ed01&oe=5CFA8CD2[/img]<br
/>[img width=300
height=168]
HTML https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/s2048x2048/51444038_895360273968073_6244683715952246784_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=6e6ef50c1f405f1218450abaee4551c5&oe=5CE7F858[/img]<br
/>[img width=300
height=168]
HTML https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/s2048x2048/51677707_2093907857368437_8427416796205678592_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=6d88a740057db90eb55117436f60fe76&oe=5CF74970[/img]
#Post#: 12260--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Susan
Date: February 8, 2019, 10:14 am
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I believe pansies are called ¨pensamientos¨ in Spanish, which is
also the word for ¨thoughts.¨ I have been making a spreadsheet
with the scientific names, Spanish names, and English names of
many plants, trees and gardening terms. I had no idea how
ambitious this project was. In many cases I linked wikipedia,
because some flowers have different names in many different
Spanish countries. I am trying to learn the most common ones,
and save the spreadsheet to learn more country specific names
before I visit that country.
I do not know about linking my google doc spreadsheet here, but
if someone would like to have the spreadsheet send me a private
message. It is still a work in progress. (For English, on most
plants I just use the name that I know, but I do not think there
is as much variety of names in English as in Spanish.)
#Post#: 12266--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Aliph
Date: February 8, 2019, 1:16 pm
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Che belle viole del pensiero Neal!
In Italian pansies are called viola del pensiero.
I think it is because the one who offers them is thinking about
the other person.
#Post#: 12278--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Nikola
Date: February 8, 2019, 4:36 pm
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Here they're called macešky (sg. maceška)
Macecha means stepmother and maceška is a diminutive so it's a
"cute little stepmother".
#Post#: 12279--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Alharacas
Date: February 8, 2019, 6:09 pm
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Nikola, same as in German: Stiefmütterchen.
This made me look up the etymology, but it seems unclear. One
explanation is as follows: the big petal on top is supposed to
be the mother, the two petals beneath it (right and left) are
her two daughters, while the 2 smaller, downward pointing ones
are the step-daughters. Sounds rather far-fetched. More
plausibly and less romantic, the old Germanic root of "Stief-"
means something like "rump" or "stunted", so it probably
referred to the size of the plant.
Wendy, thanks for also making me look up the etymology of
"pansy" - I didn't know it derived from French pensée (thought).
:)
#Post#: 12283--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Kseniia
Date: February 9, 2019, 12:48 am
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Pensamientos, viola del pensiero, macešky, Stiefmütterchen...
Wonderful. In Russian we call them
"анютины
глазки" (lit. "Ann's eyes",
both the name and the word eyes are in diminutive form), but the
"official" name is less interesting —
"фиалка
трёхцветная"
(Víola trícolor). I wonder if anyone really calls pansies
"love-in-idleness" in English... If yes, then maybe learning
English was worth it.
#Post#: 12286--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Coligno
Date: February 9, 2019, 1:34 am
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The most common name for the wild pansy (Viola tricolor) in
Irish is Goirmín (or Gormán) searraigh, which literally means "a
foal's little blue [flower]" (gorm means "blue", goirmín and
gormán are diminutive forms, searrach means "foal"). I'm not
sure why it's associated with foals, perhaps because it flowers
about the time foals are born (but so do a lot of other
flowers), or maybe it had some role in equine medicine.The field
pansy (Viola arvensis) is known as Lus croí, literally
"heartwort", for it's well-known use in herbalism for chest
complaints (compare English heartsease). As these two plants are
very similar, the two names are often mixed up.In the Gaelic of
Scotland and the Isle of Man they're also called Bròg na
cuthaige and Braag ny cooaig respectively, which mean "cuckoo's
shoe", from the shape of the back of the flower, which has a
hollow spur where a (small) cuckoo could put its back toe if it
ever decided to don a pair of pansies (a similar idea is
expressed by the Irish sailchuach for violet (Viola spp.),
meaning "cuckoo's heel").
@Kseniia, there probably are gardeners who use the name
"love-in-idleness", but I don't think it's widespread amongst
the general public.
#Post#: 12295--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Kseniia
Date: February 9, 2019, 6:56 am
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@Coligno, hm, I remember about the gorm/glas/liath thing and
that the term "gorm" is used when referring to black skin
colour, but gorm = violet? Is it because it's not exactly blue
but blue in the diminutive form?
Interesting, the Gaelic of the Isle of Man in written form does
look a bit like non-IPA transcriptions of Irish made for English
speakers. Though maybe it's pronounced differently, I'm not
really sure.
#Post#: 12410--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Coligno
Date: February 11, 2019, 5:40 am
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@Kseniia, when referring to flowers, gorm tends to indicate a
sort of bluish purple or, indeed, violet. It's not because of
the diminutive - that's just used to turn the adjective into a
noun.
Some other flowers with gorm in their name are Cornflower
(Gormán), Borage (Borráiste gorm), Bluebell (Cloigín gorm),
Harebell (Méaracán gorm), Bittersweet (Dréimire gorm or Fuath
gorm or Slata gorma), Knapweed (Brealla gorma), Field scabious
(Bodach gorm or Bréanla gorm). Of these, only the Cornflower,
Borage and Bluebell can really be called "blue" in English
(though Harebells are called "Bluebells" in Scotland), the
others are varying degrees of violet/purple/lilac/lavender.
Goirmín can also be used for Woad, but in that case the "blue"
obviously refers not to the flowers (which are yellow), but to
the dye extracted from the fermented plant which the Picts
famously used to paint their bodies (which rendered them
particularly frightening to the Romans, who ended up building a
big wall across Britain just so they didn't have to look at
them).Yes, that's basically how Manx orthography came about: it
seems that the Manx forgot how to spell properly at some stage,
so a new writing system was invented for their language by
clergymen who came over from England and Wales with no prior
knowledge of Gaelic, during the 17th and 18th century. They just
wrote down the language they learned there according to the
spelling of their own languages, and made up spellings for any
strange new sounds they encountered, without worrying too much
about consistency. Now, English spelling isn't the most logical
at the best of times, so if you mix in a bit of Welsh spelling,
and then apply it to a language with a completely different
phonology, the result is likely to be somewhat confused. And
indeed, though written Manx may look reassuringly familiar to an
English speaker, it's actually full of surprises. The plant name
I mentioned above is, I think, pronounced something like
[brɛːg nə kuːɪgʲ], and that's
quite an easy one.
#Post#: 12417--------------------------------------------------
Re: Spring is coming, the Pansies Promise
DIR By: Kseniia
Date: February 11, 2019, 11:46 am
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Ah, orthography almost always works in mysterious ways, but in
this case it does look quite unusual.
After googling all these plant names (OK, except for the
bluebell, this I managed to figure out by myself), I'll just say
that colour perception reflected in the Irish language never
ceases to amaze me. Thanks very much for the explanation and
examples, Coligno!
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