Starman-waiting - Waiting In The Sky

one thing i never get tired of in songs is when they include some sounds from the recording booth like a laugh at the end, a ‘was that good?’ or like, the sounds of the guitar being put down, a chair creaking. it’s nice how music can be used as an escape but also something that ties you right back down to earth. it will affect you so deeply & then ur like wow… you just played that. it’s grounding & magical & just one of my fave things ever!

Three college friends apparently trying everything on Taco Bell’s menu, 1988

favourite or most interesting wenglish quirks non-welsh people might not know about?

I have no idea what people would be likely to know about or not, so I’m just going to list a bunch, I think.

Inversion! I.e the thing Yoda does! Welsh allows a degree of syntactic fluidity for emphasis, and Wenglish carries this over. “Look at Boris Johnson. An absolute clown, that man is.” “I saw EEAAO on the weekend! Magical, it was, just brilliant.” This one sometimes can sound almost… wrong, actually, when used by an actual Welsh speaker. A totally normal sentence I have heard my husband say is “So cute, the cat!” instead of “The cat is so cute!” He once looked at a Pomeranian and said to me “So small, the dog!”

Doubling up on the verb to be! Similar to ‘innit’, but… more. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind, I am.” “He’s all tired out, he is.” She’s been on the go all day, she has.“ Sometimes this becomes inversion if the speaker drops the first part. So, that last one might be “Been on the go all day, she has.”

Double dipping with adjectives! Specifically, adjectives that mean the same thing. English, being a Frankenstinian mash up of eight others, has a much bigger vocabulary than Welsh, and Welsh speakers in the 1700s being forced to assimilate were fascinated by it. So “There he goes, driving around in his big huge car” - a totally normal and not redundant description in Wenglish.

Double dipping with nouns! Same reason. “Whose coat is that jacket?” “Whose shoes are those boots?”

The negative question! I love this one. When asking a shopkeeper, you might say “Have you got any milk?” Not in Wenglish! In Wenglish you say “You haven’t got any milk, have you?” (Grammatically, the correct answer to that is probably “Why, don’t you want any?”, but in reality the answer is “Yes we do” and that’s linguistically correct.) Something something Welsh people expect to be disappointed something something.

Expanded words! ‘Where’ is usually ‘where to’. “Where to am I going?” “Where to am I taking the kids?” “Where to have you put Mam Gu’s medicine?” Sometimes it can be ‘where by’, “Where by does she live in Cardiff?”

‘Do’ gets added in before verbs in some parts of the south east. This comes from a method of Welsh verb shortening, actually. 'Cerddais i’ means 'I walked’ - 'nes i gerdded’ means the same thing, but literally is 'I did walk’. And that’s how they roll in Abertillery! “Whenever I go to town I do buy a cake.” “Gareth do play rugby on the weekend”. (For clarity’s sake, that last one would otherwise be 'Gareth plays rugby on the weekend.’)

'Look’ and 'see’ as verbal tags! Used at the end of a sentence for emphasis. “He’s done fucked it up, look.” “It’s easier not to bother, see.”

And a whole bunch of Welsh loanwords that get sprinkled in. Plus some English ones that we liked and used indiscriminately; the biggest and best example of that is 'tidy’, which is the most overworked word in all of Wenglish. How much did you sell your car for? A tidy amount. Did she hand in the wallet she found? Yeah, she’s tidy. How was your blind date? Tidy, yeah, might go for a second with him. Did you enjoy your meal? It was tidy, yeah.

Welsh ones:

Dwt (n) or dwti (adj). Very tiny. “He’s a dwt of a boy.” “Look at the kittens! I love the little dwti one.”

Cwtch, my beloved. Best word. Closest English analogue is 'hug’, which we also use, but a cwtch has connotations of being a little fluffy animal tucked cozy and safe into a comfy little space all happy and warm. Can be a noun (a cwtch), a verb (cwtch him up all nice) or an adjective (I love this room, it’s cwtchy). There is safety, security and comfort to a cwtch. Lesser used, but it also applies to a method of wrapping your baby into your arm with a shawl (traditional Welsh childcare method: baby stays warm, your arm doesn’t get tired, and you keep one hand free), and the small cupboard under the stairs.

Bach - small. Used as a term of endearment. “How are you, bach?” Generally used by someone older to someone younger.

Byt/byti - mate. Possibly where the American English 'buddy’ comes from. Used like bach, but between peers rather than older to younger.

Titles. Especially for grandparents! We’re still recovering from the lost generation of the seventies and eighties, so it’s not uncommon for people to have Welsh speaking grandparents who didn’t pass on the language but use the titles. Mam-gu and Tad-cu in the south (abbreviated to Gu and Cu), Nain and Taid in the north. But also Mam instead of Mum.

That’s all I can think of offhand, anyway! There will definitely be more.

🎶 All you need is love 🎶

New sticker design!

Left to right: Mira, Jack, Rio (above), Veri (below), Sorcerous Quigley (in Veri's arms), Mick, and Mr. Conductor (in Mick's hand)

alternate coloring