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- "Min syster är brandman."
33 Comments
It's funny: in Dutch we have retained this distinction between controllable and uncontrollable fire with the words 'vuur' en 'brand', like in 'vuursteen' 'brandalarm'. I think that's even not so weird because they're quite different things: the former is something useful and spectacular, while the latter is a feared and devastating monster which swallows everything on its path.
163
In Russian (and probably in all Slavic languages) we also have distinctive words for controllable an uncontrollable fire: "огонь" and "пожар". And we call a firefighter "пожарный".
According to who?
"bright (adj.) Old English bryht, by metathesis from beorht "bright; splendid; clear-sounding; beautiful; divine," from Proto-Germanic *berhta- "bright" (cognates: Old Saxon berht, Old Norse bjartr, Old High German beraht, Gothic bairhts "bright")..." It goes on, but I think you get the point.
"brand: from Old Norse brandr, from Proto-Germanic *brandaz"
Not really. It's become a fixed expression for the profession, just like sjuksköterska has become the fixed title for nurses despite it being feminine.
There are however many more examples of -man forming the title of profession, and this is not unproblematic. Thus we now prefer talesperson (spokesperson) rather than talesman (spokesman), for example.
1451
talesman, taleskvinna, talesperson, and språkrör are all good words. Språkrör has become a bit tied up with the Green party though, because they call their party leaders that way.
278
Or Ukrainian.
Wait. We don't have any indefinite articles in Ukrainian at all. Why do you need them?
1451
That's in the suggested translation, see on top of this page. Maybe it was something else that the owl didn't like?