this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Building Solidarity - One Word at a Time

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macron trump-enlightened

Me seeing this graphic in a Youtube video

"Buddha-type valve???" monke-beepboop

(These are the three types of valves you find on bicycle tires: Presta, Dunlop and Schrader, often also called French, English and American valves, respectively)

I somehow didn't know this before and I find it really funny

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's phonetic

江戸時代ではイギリスのことを「エゲレス」と発音し、明治や大正時代では漢字で「英吉利」と書かれるようになり、その後「英国」と名付けられました source https://ryugaku-uk.net/2020/06/08/origin-of-igirisu/

My haphazard attempt at a translation

During the Edo period, England's pronunciation was 'Egeresu' and during the Meiji and Taisho Periods the kanji 英吉利 (eigiri?) were used. After this it was given the name 英国 (eikoku)

So the 英 comes from the phonetic abbreviation. It's the same in Chinese where 英国 yingguo comes from 英格兰 yinggelan. In phonetic transcriptions, characters with good meanings are chosen over characters with negative meanings, so the 英 meaning heroic is incidental

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I love those sorts of terms in Japanese, like popcorn is ポップコーン (poppukōn) and katsuretsu, shortened to katsu, is from the English word cutlet.