Words we trust and love that are secretly Welsh immigrants to the English Language
In the Western Hemisphere, our verve for the Welsh language is at best wishy-washy and vague. Welsh? Nothing more than a belching squelch of existence, to us narrow-minded oockers of self-centered monolingualism. But who is it that is foreverly fondling our fates? Whose fingers is the dust of our lives gently falling through? We at The B-Line speak of the skirling spiffles of Welsh, of course.
Penguins
Penguins are charming lumps of feathers that don’t have any teeth. Izah Bhuniyan ‘26 believes that the power that penguins hold over our lives is not to a satisfactory amount; she shriekingly announced that “they need more appreciation!” But imagine a penguin without the name “penguin”! Preposterous! Impossible! But imagine a penguin existing in a world without Welsh; for who is the forsaken birth parent of the “penguin”, but Welsh! The Welsh pen (“head”) and the Welsh gwyn (“white”) interbred to create the word “penguin”.
But alack! You cry. For mercy! Penguin heads are most certainly not white.
Ah, my friend, thank you for mentioning that. It has been thought that “penguin” originally defined the existence of the Great Auk, a now extinct seabird who, like the modern penguin, uses its wings as flippers.
Trembling Chickens! You cry. What a foolish excuse! Great Auks didn’t have white heads either!
Ah, you are much too clever for your own good. Ignore common sense (for common sense is particularly prone to murdering delightful ideas), and continue on your way.
Cardigans
Because you attend an all-around finishing school, it is entirely plausible that you wear cardigans. Cardigans are sweaters that have floppy bits that sometimes button together but usually just flop around. Cardigan sweaters even inspired the name of a Swedish rock band, The Cardigans, who formed in Jönköping, Sweden, in 1992. But cardigans are Welsh? Outlandish! Far-fetched! But, not really that outlandish or far-fetched. The cardigan was named for the Seventh Earl of Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, who was one of those wackadoos who stumble around in cardigans. Katherine Cheung, ‘26, an established cardigan-wearer herself, explained that cardigans “provide a sense of comfort especially during the winter months when everything else seems bleak and chilly.”
But B-Line! You shout good-naturedly. There’s nothing Welsh about that!
But, my friend, there is. Cardigan is an anglicized version of Ceredigion, a thoroughly Welsh word meaning “Ceredig’s land”. And who is Ceredig, but an ancient Welsh king. So there.
Corgis
Corgis are squat, rumpy dogs who swarm the lives of the rich, and who, in keeping with myth, are descendents of faeries. Queen Elizabeth II, a considerably well-known fellow in her own right (you may have heard of her), raised more than thirty corgis throughout her life. Freshman Roland Kaufman ‘26 approves of the existence of corgis, saying that “the only reason I don’t have one is that I slightly prefer cats.” But Welsh? Welsh indeed. Corgi is the product of cor (“dwarf”) and ci (“dog”). Is there anything more positively exhilarating than an ugly fairy dwarf dog? I think not. And, in keeping with the B-Line tradition of (figuratively) tying in aspects of our Barstow life to unBarstow-like activities, there is a corgi type called the Pembroke Welsh Corgi.
Balderdash
Teenagers seemingly speak nothing but balderdash. Adults seemingly speak nothing but balderdash. Really, the only ones making any sense around here are the trees. Balderdash is a word synonymous to twaddle, flapdoodle, rubbish, poppycock, bosh, codswallop, piffle, gobbledygook, blather, tommyrot, claptrap, malarkey, drivel, waffle, and a number of other glorious things. “Balderdash”’s etymology is rather disputed, but the most credible opinion is that it comes from the Welsh baldordd (“idle noisy talk, chatter”). What balderdash.
Flannel
Most of us dream in flannel. Our dreams are usually not in flannel, but we usually are. Flannel is an abysmal excuse of a butler (heed my advice and never hire a flannel shirt as your butler), but rather pleasant for all of us aspiring lumberjacks. Lumberjackically, Sarah Villacorta ‘26 said that, “I think it’s a clothing that gives off fall vibes.”
But B-Line!
Poppet?
Flannel is Welsh? That is just as likely as I am to grind my grandmother’s snail pot into a refrigerated doorknob!
Well, I suppose you have to grind your grandmother’s snail pot into a refrigerated doorknob, because “flannel” comes from the word gwlanen (“flannel wool”).
Drat.
Wrasse
Wrasses are neglected fishels (or fish, for the -el suffix haters) with striking colours and lovely names. An offshoot of wrassism is the hump-headed wrasse, also known as the Napoleon wrasse. Napoleon? Napoleon, yes, because their ungainly humps reminded some dandy Ichthyologist of Napoleon Bonaparte’s hat. Romina Taghizadeh ‘26 confirmed that they’re “colorful, look cool, and [are] fish”.
Wrasses are Welsh, too, I presume.
Righty-ho! Excellent presumption skills. The word “wrasse” comes from gwrach (“hag” or “witch”), which wrinkles the wrasse’s sterling reputation before one even knows what a wrasse is.
Bard
A nickname for a man believed to be the greatest writer in the English language, the name of a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and the name of Google’s relatively new chatbot butler, a bard is, to quote Noah Webster and his lexicographical henchmen, “a tribal poet-singer skilled in composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds; a composer, singer or declaimer of epic or heroic verse; a poet”.
That’s all good and merry, says you. But what the dickens does it have to do with Welsh?
Ahh, be patient, young cloudlet. “Bard” has a number of perfectly plausible origin stories (we at The B-Line are particularly biased toward the Welsh explanation, but sprunkle-fie away), one of which calls it a derivative of the Welsh bardd, another being from the Scottish word bardis, and the last being from the Cornish word bardh. All of these (bardis, bardh, and bardd, together) were children of the Old Celtic word bardos, so they’re all siblings anyhow, no matter which one was responsible for its slink into the English language.
Crumpet
Crumpets are absolutely hilarious creatures (not that we at The B-Line have ever eaten one; Izah Bhuniyan, B-Line writer extraordinaire, admitted sadly that she’s “never tried them but they look nice”). If you don’t believe us, scream the word “crumpet” over and over until you start laughing (it’s a positively buttoned up theory!). See? It’s phonologically perfect (hopefully I used the word “phonologically” correctly. If not, pretend I didn’t use it). Not that we should judge a word by its name, but, in the case of crumpet, we should certainly judge it by its name and become its very best friend. Crumpets either came from the Welsh crempog/ cramwyth (“little hearth cakes”) or some other irrelevant source (irrelevant because it has nothing to do with Welsh, and Welsh is what is important in the world of this article). In case you were wondering,
Why, yes, I was.
crumpling up your heart and replacing it with a crumpet is the best advice of the millennium.
Mither
Come hither, my mother, I mither in jest. Aslithering others does bitter my breast.
To mither, or, as a mellowly online dictionary would say, “to fuss over or moan about something” is something loads of us do, consciously, unconsciously, and purply. If you are interested in withering your mithering away, consider the following Lemony Snicket quote:
“You cannot wait for an untroubled world to have an untroubled moment. The terrible phone call, the rainstorm, the sinister knock on the door—they will all come. Soon enough arrive the treacherous villain and the unfair trial and the smoke and the flames of the suspicious fires to burn everything away. In the meantime, it is best to grab what wonderful moments you find lying around.”
Inspirational balderdash aside, we haven’t yet mentioned the Welsh! Mither is, according to most mither-scholars, likely derived from the Welsh word moedro (“to bother or pester someone”).
This Welsh is thoroughly boring me, you mither snottily.
Do not fret, my friend. We are almost there.
Lawn
Modern day lawns are diabolical plots to rid us of our souls. Suburbanites (with the emphasis on the “elderly, retired” part of the word) fritter away hours of the fleeting pearly substance of life by combing their lawns for twigs and specks of withered leaf to make their yards as plastic and simulated-looking as humanly possible.
I beg your pardon, you shriek. I spend centuries of hours (ignore the impossibility of a century of an hour if you wish to retain your sanity) on my lawn. I’ve got wisterias! And a nice, red rake! And I’ve still got my soul, thank you very much!
So be it. “Lawn,” you’ll be interested to know, originates from the Welsh Llan and the Cornish Lan (“heath; enclosed area of land, grass about a Christian site of worship”). Lawnly, later, we yawn.
You are likely feeling similar to a weary-nosed hag, welshed to your fill and worded aplenty. If that is the case, we will let you go to sleep now (though rest assured that there are bucketfuls more of these words).
