{"id":410,"date":"2010-09-15T08:46:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T08:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=410"},"modified":"2012-03-20T06:15:56","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T06:15:56","slug":"cool-cold-freezing-frigorific-i-ngaeilge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/cool-cold-freezing-frigorific-i-ngaeilge\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool, Cold, Freezing, Frigorific (i nGaeilge)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, we\u2019ve talked a lot about an aimsir<\/strong>, hairic\u00edn\u00ed, cine\u00e1lacha eile stoirmeacha<\/strong>, and c\u00e9imeanna teasa<\/strong>, from warm to hot to sweltering.\u00a0 This time, we\u2019ll reverse the theme of the last blog, and discuss degrees of fuacht<\/strong> ([FOO-ukht] coldness).<\/p>\n

First, probably the most basic construction:<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 s\u00e9 fuar inniu<\/strong>.\u00a0 It\u2019s cold today.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 m\u00e9 fuar<\/strong>.\u00a0 I\u2019m cold.<\/p>\n

A few other expressions with \u201cfuar<\/strong>\u201d are<\/p>\n

bainne fuar<\/strong>, cold milk<\/p>\n

fuarungadh<\/strong>, cold-cream<\/p>\n

fuarchro\u00edoch <\/strong>[FOO-ur-KHREE-ukh], cold-hearted<\/p>\n

And, curiously, Irish has at least two phrases for \u201ccold porridge,\u201d fuarleite<\/strong> and brach\u00e1n fuar<\/strong>.\u00a0 Neam! neam<\/strong>!\u00a0 \u00a0But that\u2019s not all.\u00a0 The idea of \u201ccold porridge\u201d can even be used metaphorically in Irish, as in the phrase \u201cIs brach\u00e1n \u00f3 ar\u00e9ir \u00e9<\/strong>,\u201d i.e. cold comfort, lit. \u201clast night\u2019s porridge.\u201d\u00a0 Double \u201cneam neam<\/strong>\u201d!<\/p>\n

For \u201ccool,\u201d there are various choices, mostly all compound words, which, in and of itself is revealing.\u00a0 The idea of \u201ccool\u201d in Irish seems to be more a toning down of cold (fuar<\/strong>) rather than a specific idea of temperature.<\/p>\n

fionnuar<\/strong> (fionn<\/strong>, fair, slight + fhuar<\/strong>, cool)<\/p>\n

f\u00e9ithuar,<\/strong> in my experience this is much less typical than fionnuar.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Related words, all still based on the word for \u201ccold\u201d (fuar<\/strong>), include:<\/p>\n

fuarthan<\/strong>, a cool place for storing things<\/p>\n

fuarth\u00e1n<\/strong>, coolant<\/p>\n

dul i bhfuaire<\/strong>, to cool down<\/p>\n

fuaraitheoir f\u00edona<\/strong>, a wine-cooler<\/p>\n

A \u201ccool drink\u201d could be \u201cdeoch fhuar<\/strong>,\u201d which could also mean a \u201ccold drink.\u201d\u00a0 But what would the difference have been, fad\u00f3<\/strong>, in a country where ice was not traditionally included with soft drinks?<\/p>\n

The irresistible simile, \u201ccool as a cucumber\u201d can be expressed as:<\/p>\n

Is \u00ed an fuarth\u00e9 \u00ed<\/strong>.\u00a0 She is as cool as a cucumber, lit. She\u2019s an apathetic person.<\/p>\n

Nothing to do with c\u00facamair<\/strong>, obviously.\u00a0 But for full disclosure, I\u2019d have to say that \u201cfuarth\u00e9<\/strong>\u201d doesn\u2019t seem to be nearly as widely used in Irish as the cucumber analogy is in English, where, if anything, I’d say it’s an overdone clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cCool\u201d in the sense of \u201chip\u201d or \u201ctrendy\u201d is a tricky translation in any language, at least of those I\u2019ve checked.\u00a0 For Irish, \u201cr\u00e9ch\u00faiseach<\/strong>\u201d seems to fit the bill, but doesn\u2019t have quite the panache of \u201ccool,\u201d whose monosyllabicity seems to intensify its meaning. \u201cR\u00e9ch\u00faiseach<\/strong>\u201d also means \u201ceasy-going\u201d or \u201cindifferent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for \u201cfreezing,\u201d there\u2019s the literal concept, as in food, water, etc.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s the way people feel when they say, \u201cI\u2019m freezing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the technical sense, words for \u201cfreezing\u201d are usually based on \u201creo<\/strong>\u201d (to freeze). \u201cReo<\/strong>\u201d is related to the prefix \u201ccryo-\u201c but most really scientific terms in Irish now use \u201ccri\u00f3-<\/strong>\u201d for that, as in \u201ccri\u00f3sc\u00f3p<\/strong>\u201d or \u201ccri\u00f3iginic.<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0 Examples based on \u201creo<\/strong>\u201d include:<\/p>\n

feoil reoite<\/strong>, frozen meat<\/p>\n

reoiteoir<\/strong>, freezer<\/p>\n

reophointe<\/strong>, freezing-point<\/p>\n

reo\u00e1n<\/strong>, icing (for cake)<\/p>\n

uachtar reoite<\/strong> or reoiteog<\/strong>, ice cream<\/p>\n

When we feel freezing, we could say:<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 m\u00e9 sioctha<\/strong>. I\u2019m frozen, closer to \u201csioc<\/strong>\u201d (frost) than \u201creo<\/strong>\u201d as such<\/p>\n

Bh\u00ed m\u00e9 leata leis an bhfuacht<\/strong>. I was perished with cold.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 muid caillte leis an bhfuacht<\/strong>. We\u2019re perished (lit. lost) with the cold<\/p>\n

Chuaigh an fuacht go smior ionainn<\/strong>.\u00a0 The cold chilled us to the marrow.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 m\u00e9 stromptha le fuacht<\/strong>.\u00a0 I\u2019m is stiff with cold, from strompadh<\/strong>, to stiffen (in general)<\/p>\n

And finally, for \u201cfrigorific,\u201d we have reoiteach<\/strong>, as in measc\u00e1n reoiteach, <\/strong>frigorific mixture.\u00a0 On a more everyday basis \u201creoiteach<\/strong>\u201d can also be translated as \u201cfrosty\u201d or \u201cchilling,\u201d as in \u201cgeimhreadh reoiteach<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next time, to continue on this theme, horripilation, anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, we\u2019ve talked a lot about an aimsir, hairic\u00edn\u00ed, cine\u00e1lacha eile stoirmeacha, and c\u00e9imeanna teasa, from warm to hot to sweltering.\u00a0 This time, we\u2019ll reverse the theme of the last blog, and discuss degrees of fuacht ([FOO-ukht] coldness). First, probably the most basic construction: T\u00e1 s\u00e9 fuar inniu.\u00a0 It\u2019s cold today. T\u00e1 m\u00e9 fuar.\u00a0 I\u2019m…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[207378,1032,207370,34659,54,207364,207371,5260,207366,207373,207367,207368,207369,5667,207377,207372,207375,207374,207376],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-apathetic","tag-cold","tag-cold-porridge","tag-coldness","tag-cool","tag-coolness","tag-fionnuar","tag-freezing","tag-frigorific","tag-frozen","tag-fuacht","tag-fuar","tag-fuarleite","tag-irish","tag-rechuiseach","tag-reoite","tag-strompa","tag-strompa-le","tag-strompa-le-fuacht"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}