# Words made up of two languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708 "2008-03-17T22:00:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/21 "2008-03-18T20:41:08Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] Try words ending in “nik”. > **[\-nik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-nik)** > > The English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun (that is, it describes a person related to the thing, state, habit, or action described by the word to which the suffix is attached). In the cases where a native English language coinage may occur, the "-nik"-word often bears an ironic connotation, as in the case of the terms coined for the failed rocket launch of the U.S. satellite rival to Sputnik, such as The s... [/QUOTE] With certain exceptions. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/22 "2008-03-18T20:43:25Z")
[QUOTE=Grimpen] Then there’s Torpenhow Hill in England, built up by successive waves of settlement asking directions from the locals. Each syllable of the name means “hill”, in a different language … [/QUOTE] :eek: I was all set to ask you if drop bears live there… …but apparently [you’re not having me on!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill) ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/23 "2008-03-18T20:44:50Z")
[QUOTE=Grimpen] Then there’s Torpenhow Hill in England, built up by successive waves of settlement asking directions from the locals. Each syllable of the name means “hill”, in a different language … [/QUOTE] _torp_ is Scandinavian for “village”, German _Dorf_ ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/24 "2008-03-18T20:50:50Z")
[QUOTE=TV time] What’s wrong with “octopussies”? It makes me smile. AS for hybrid words - “Spanglish” comes to mind. Out here is the Southwest its a real word. [/QUOTE] Both from the same language though, right? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/25 "2008-03-18T21:27:46Z")
[QUOTE=Gymnopithys] _torp_ is Scandinavian for “village”, German _Dorf_ [/QUOTE] Ah, yes. However, the first part of “Torpenhow Hill” is not “torp”, but “[tor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28geography%29)” - which means hill. The name breaks down to Tor-Pen-How Hill. See **WhyNot** ’s link above. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/26 "2008-03-18T21:31:28Z")
> [@](#): > > “Automobile” is another good one. And it’s a darned shame… “Autokinetikon” would be so much cooler. > [@](#): > > torp is Scandinavian for “village”, German Dorf That may be, but “tor” means “hill”. Along similar lines, I’ve heard of words accumulating articles from four or five different languages before. > [@](#): > > Yeah, there must be a bunch in science, such as photovoltaic. photo-Greek, volt-Italian. Which isn’t quite fair, since first, “volt” comes from a proper name, and second, that’s also the word for “volt” in Greek, too, or something similar to it. Electrical units just aren’t old enough to have distinct words in different languages. You could probably find a bunch of words involving “meter”, though, that would work. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/27 "2008-03-18T21:38:31Z")
[QUOTE=Grimpen] Then there’s Torpenhow Hill in England, built up by successive waves of settlement asking directions from the locals. Each syllable of the name means “hill”, in a different language … [/QUOTE] Though slightly less redundant, there’s also [Bredon Hill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bredon_Hill), which means Hillhill Hill, and [Breedon on the Hill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breedon_on_the_Hill) - Hillhill on the Hill. ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/28 "2008-03-19T07:52:23Z")
[QUOTE=Peak Banana] Ah, yes. However, the first part of “Torpenhow Hill” is not “torp”, but “[tor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28geography%29)” - which means hill. The name breaks down to Tor-Pen-How Hill. See **WhyNot** ’s link above. [/QUOTE] Depends on how you want to divide the word: > **[UCLE: More articles](http://alt-usage-english.org/ucle/ucle10.html)** > [@](#): > > Cumbria’s Torpenhow hill is listed in The Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names as: “the ridge of a hill with a rocky peak”, and gives the following etymology: tor (OE) + penn (Celtic) + ho’h (OE). All of these words can be traced to a root word having to do with a hill. The story goes that as each wave of invaders discovered the hill, they took the existing name and appended their word for “hill” on to it. > > The “penn” root, however, is difficult because it also appears in place-names describing an enclosure for animals (i.e., a “pen”). There are other place-names where “penn” is clearly linked to a hill, such as Penrith and Pensax. > > Contributor Matti adds, “…a second possibility for Tor-, namely a corruption of Dorp or Thorpe for ‘village’. This seems more likely to me, as Tor doesn’t seem to be used in that region to denote a hill. One thing everyone agrees on is the pronunciation, Trepenna…” > > Other contenders for “hill” repetitions are Venlaw Hill in Scotland and Creechbarrow Hill in Hants. There is also the Alice Holt Hurst Wood in Surrey (wood wood wood). Also Northern England is within the area of Scandinavian influence. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/29 "2008-03-19T08:51:38Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] > [@](#): > > “Automobile” is another good one. And it’s a darned shame… “Autokinetikon” would be so much cooler. [/QUOTE] A teacher of mine preferred ipsomobile. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/30 "2008-03-19T18:19:20Z")
Well, there’s one I made up a few years ago: **cervusoffensiophobia** : fear of hitting a deer (with one’s car). From the Latin _cervus_, Latin or Greek (not sure which) _offensio_, and Greek _phobia_. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/31 "2008-03-19T21:26:34Z")
[QUOTE=Gymnopithys] Depends on how you want to divide the word: > **[UCLE: More articles](http://alt-usage-english.org/ucle/ucle10.html)** Also Northern England is within the area of Scandinavian influence. [/QUOTE] That’s interesting. Still, it’s one guy on a newsgroup versus one bazillion claims to the contrary, it seems. Got more sources? (Not picking on you, just genuinely interested. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Them](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@The\_Them](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Them)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/32 "2008-03-20T00:50:40Z")
Not quite a proper answer to the OP, but I have: > [@](#): > > …as strikingly demonstrated in the word\* incomprehensibility,\* which consists of the root _-hen-_ and eight affixes and infixes: _in, -com-, -pre-, -s-, -ib-, -il-, -it,_ and _-y._ -Bill Bryson, _The Mother Tongue_ Better believe I had to look a little for that one. The _-hen-_ is Anglo-Saxon, the rest…Bryson didn’t specify individually, though I think _-com-_ is Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/33 "2008-03-20T12:22:20Z")
[QUOTE=Peak Banana] That’s interesting. Still, it’s one guy on a newsgroup versus one bazillion claims to the contrary, it seems. Got more sources? (Not picking on you, just genuinely interested. 🙂 ) [/QUOTE] Hi Peak! hillhillhill is an amusing etymology for Torpenhow Hill, that’s why you find it all over the place. You won’t find _Blackpool_ in as many places because its etymology is evident, therefore “dull”. This page in Wiki mentions _thorpe_ but not _tor_ as a composite in place names: > **[List of generic forms in place names in the British Isles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_British_place_names)** > > This article lists a number of common generic forms in place names in the British Isles, their meanings and some examples of their use. The study of place names is called toponymy; for a more detailed examination of this subject in relation to British and Irish place names, refer to Toponymy in the United Kingdom and Ireland. > Key to languages: Bry: Brythonic; C: Cumbric; K: Cornish; I: Irish; L: Latin; ME: Middle English; NF: Norman French; OE: Old English (Anglo-Saxon); ON: Old Norse; P: Pic... Regards ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/34 "2008-03-20T13:22:01Z")
[QUOTE=The Them] Not quite a proper answer to the OP, but I have: > [@](#): > > …as strikingly demonstrated in the word incomprehensibility, which consists of the root -hen- and eight affixes and infixes: in, -com-, -pre-, -s-, -ib-, -il-, -it, and -y. -Bill Bryson, _The Mother Tongue_ Better believe I had to look a little for that one. The _-hen-_ is Anglo-Saxon, the rest…Bryson didn’t specify individually, though I think _-com-_ is Latin. [/QUOTE] The “hen” in there would be Latin, present in such classical Latin words as “apprehendere” and “comprehendere”. Classical Latin did not borrow any words from Anglo-Saxon, since it only existed before Anglo-Saxon started to exist. (Similarly, Ancient Greek has a complete absence of loan words from French). ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/35 "2014-10-16T11:18:56Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > I read once (perhaps in a book by Willard Espy) that “remacadamizing” is derived from five languages: re- from Latin, -mac- from Gaelic, -adam- from Hebrew, -iz- from Greek, and -ing from Old English. That’s sort of cheating since the “-macadam-” part is from a proper name, and because productive suffixes and prefixes from different languages are often mixed. But it’s really cheating because “remacadamizing” isn’t in any of my dictionaries. I know this thread is a few years old, but I thought you might be interested to know a bit more about “remacadamizing”. I don’t recall Espy ever having remarked on the etymology of this word, but if he did he certainly wasn’t the first. Back when Espy was still in diapers, [Alexander Chamberlain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Francis_Chamberlain) penned [an article in the February 1912 _The Popular Science Monthly_](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eyADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&source=bl&ots=BY0Aqj3R3s&sig=McacHlI0PBFfj6S3SvGKM48PtHk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=x58_VLjZGYPkaLf5gMAF&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false) discussing all sorts of interesting trivia about the English language. Included is an entire paragraph about “remacadamizing” and its five-language genealogy. Lest anyone think Chamberlain invented the word for this article, Google Books searches show that it’s been in use since at least 1907. True, dictionaries don’t list it as a headword, but then again, dictionaries rarely list all regular, semantically compositional derivations. The _OED_ does have a headword for the inflected form “macadamizing”, which is already more than I expected. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/36 "2014-10-16T11:42:05Z")
> [@Grimpen](#): > > Then there’s Torpenhow Hill in England, built up by successive waves of settlement asking directions from the locals. Each syllable of the name means “hill”, in a different language … Oh, and I’ve got a follow-up on this one as well: even at the time this thread had been posted, this claim had been pretty thoroughly debunked (see [Darryl Francis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Francis)’s [“The Debunking of Torpenhow Hill”](http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4733&context=wordways) in the February 2003 _[Word Ways](http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/)_). This was apparently unknown to the authors of the Wikipedia article that **WhyNot** cited, though it’s since been updated. Incidentally, I’d be interested to know if anyone here can match or beat “remacadamizing” for the number of source languages. Anyone know of an attested English word which has roots in five or more different languages? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/37 "2014-10-16T11:44:31Z")
I know this is a zombie, but I think it might be worth pointing out that, according to the current version of [the relevant Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill), Torpenhow hill probably does not exist. There is a village called Torpenhow, but it is not on a hill, and indeed, [looking at it on Google maps](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Torpenhow,+Wigton,+Cumbria+CA7/@54.7459475,-3.241391,1026m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x487cd80d0498f405:0x896b1a319c12405d?hl=en) (and street view), the land all around it seems to be pretty much flat as a pancake. In a similar vein, however, a neuroscientist might refer to “[the arborization of the dendritic tree](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bWUVADC74d8C&lpg=PA74&ots=uDs4tQ2Azz&dq=%22the%20arborization%20of%20the%20dendritic%20tree%22&pg=PA74#v=onepage&q=%22the%20arborization%20of%20the%20dendritic%20tree%22&f=false)” (9,000 hits for the phrase on Google), which amounts to saying “the treeishness of the treeish tree” in words derived from Latin (or French), Greek, and English respectively. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/38 "2014-10-16T11:50:22Z")
I see \*\* was ninjaed on Torpenhow hill, by **psychonaut**. ☹ I do agree that “remacadamizing” is a perfectly cromulent word. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/39 "2014-10-16T12:23:12Z")
> [@Gymnopithys](#): > > _torp_ is Scandinavian for “village”, German _Dorf_ I know this was years ago, but: In modern Swedish, _torp_ actually means cottage, not village. In both modern Danish and modern Norwegian, the word has fallen entirely out of use - in old-timey Danish, it used to mean village, or rather a specific sort of village, created when people left a larger village and set up a new one on its outskirts. So sort of like a medieval 'burb, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/40 "2014-10-16T13:21:55Z")
> [@The\_Them](#): > > Not quite a proper answer to the OP, but I have: > > > [@](#): > > > > …as strikingly demonstrated in the word incomprehensibility, which consists of the root -hen- and eight affixes and infixes: in, -com-, -pre-, -s-, -ib-, -il-, -it, and -y. > > -Bill Bryson, _The Mother Tongue_ > > Better believe I had to look a little for that one. The _-hen-_ is Anglo-Saxon, the rest…Bryson didn’t specify individually, though I think _-com-_ is Latin. Bill Bryson is a wonderful writer but such a fucking tool when it comes to language, as is strikingly demonstrated in the above quote. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708.md?page=3)