- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In a recent post, I used a handful of different words for a flute-player: flautist (c.f. Italian 'flautista'), flutenist (c.f. 'lutenist'), flutist, fluter, fluteress.
... and the last one tickled one member’s fancy. This got me to wondering what other words there might be, so I went to my shelf of dictionaries to see what might turn up. Alas, the plight of musicians and listeners is not an enviable one, especially in Scots and Irish society. The faint of heart need read no further!
The French have the cognate 'flutiste'. According to fr.wiktionary.org, 'fluteur' and 'fluteuse' are jocular or insulting terms for a male and female flute player respectively. Logically, they should also have the lovely 'flutrice' for a fluteress, to match 'acteur/actrice' for ‘actor/actress', but, alas, it doesn't exist.
While it's difficult to see why a language would need to be able to insult flute-players specifically (what about organists or xylophonists, say?), in English we do have the delightful ‘poetaster' for an inferior poet (Scots Gaelic has a similar pair, oddly enough: 'bard' is neutral, 'bardan' derogatory).
And as a randomly-dredged-up piece of linguistic irrelevance, Scots Gaelic also has 2 words for a weaver: 'figheadair' is the neutral term based on the word for 'weaving', while 'breabadair' is the insulting term, and means a 'kicker' (some looms are foot operated).
Highland society wasn't just hag-ridden with tribes of inferior poets and weavers, however; one's musical existence could be pretty unpleasant at times. They evidently had their share of excruciating pipers for instance, as shown by the following proverb (which is also used in Irish): 'Is searbh piobair an aona phuirt', "Disagreeable is the piper [who only knows] a single tune".
Even the poor old flute comes in for some abuse as well, as shown by the following expression for how worthless you are: Cha d'thugainn feadag ort!, 'I wouldn't give a flute [or a whistle] for you!' (for which the Irish have a similar expression referring to the jaw's harp, 'Ni thiubhrainn trompa (gan teanga) ort!') And flute playing ('duisealadh') could evidently be painful for all concerned, as it also means a flogging or a whipping.
As if that weren't bad enough, they were seemingly plagued with violinist wannabes as well; 'fidhleir' is a fiddler or violinist, while 'fidileir' is a bad one (whose awful playing is ‘fidileireachd'). There's a famous quote, 'If that be [bad] fiddling, then we've had enough of it!' ('Ma s'e sin fidilearachd, tha sin gu leoir againn dheth!').
The humble jaw's harp ('tromb') and the noble trumpet ('trombaid') were bones of contention as well; their music ('trombaireachd') was synonymous with petty moans and complaints.
In Ireland, things were scarcely any better; a bout of diarrhoea is ‘iarracht de chuislinn', literally 'an attack of the flute'. Two unseemly actions (according to Dineen's Irish dictionary)are 'whistling [or piping] by night and the telling of Fenian tales by day' ('Feadghaile istoidhche is sceal Fiannaidheachta um lo'). The noble sound of the bagpipes ('piobaireachta') is synonymous with 'empty noise', while the act of piping itself ('piobarnach') can mean either ‘wheezing' or that unpleasant ringing noise in the ears, tinnitus. Still, at least the fiddlers seem to get off unscathed in the Emerald Isle.
So, if you feel a little downhearted when your teacher criticises your technique, think how much worse it might have been had you been a Gaelic musician in days gone by!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Eddie Climo also is the author of a book on Turkshead and Pineapple Knot tying and other fancy knotwork, soon to be published in the UK. Some pictures of his stuff are HERE.
BACK to Jerry's Flute Pages