Taisyklingai kalbėkime ir rašykime

BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 KAZYS ULVYDAS LET'S SPEAK AND WRITE CORRECTLY Manuscripts of Radio Speech Hours 1 1963.XII.13 1. Drg. Pranas Morkiškis from Vilnius asks whether it is correct for radio announcers to say 19:30 minutes when announcing the programme for the next day. If a time is given when something will happen, it is said: 19 hours 30 minutes, 8 hours 21 minutes, 23 hours 2 minutes, 0 hours 8 minutes, 1 hour 34 minutes, and so on. Minutes here, wherever possible, are said in the nominative pronoun. When the current time is stated, it is said: It is now seven hours one minute, 22 hours 38 minutes, 16 hours 20 minutes, etc. But here too, we should not be afraid of triple digits – it would be perfectly possible to say: Now it is the first hour eight minutes, the fourteenth hour 20 minutes. There are also other constructions of hours and minutes, namely: Come at half past eleven, now it is half past nine, we will leave two minutes after two, or – two minutes after two, call me before 20 three, now it is before 20 three, or – before 20 three, gather at 25 after four, or – 25 after four, and so on. Thus, sometimes we skip even the word hour, minute forms, and say only the forms of numerals (hours or with prepositions), and all this is understood by the listeners. 1 We publish the manuscripts of two radio programmes, preserved by Eglė Bugienė, daughter of Kazis Ulvydas. The language has not been corrected, accents are as in the manuscript, paving words are printed in italics. Kazys Ulvydas. 2 In addition, instead of saying fifteen minutes, the noun quarter is sometimes used (as BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 the noun half is used instead of saying thirty minutes), e.g.: now it is quarter three, without quarter six, without quarter twelve, we will start lunch a quarter after one, etc. However, it must be said that among the many constructions used in speech to describe hours and minutes, the most convenient are those mentioned first, namely: I will come at ten o'clock five minutes and now it is twenty-three o'clock four minutes (or: twenty-third hour four minutes). These structures are very convenient to describe time divided into hourly and past or subsequent. 2. Drg. Buzienė from Ukmergė asks whether the female names Vaivà, Daivà, Gaivà are old or new, whether they are Lithuanian and where they come from. 2 The name Vaivas is known from Krėvė's work "Perkūnas, Vaiva and Straublys". The other two are probably newly formed. Daivà claims to be related to goddess, and Gaivà is indistinguishable from such words as fresh, refreshing, etc. These names are now quite common, they are well composed and there is no reason to avoid them. But in general, we should be more careful when giving children names. First of all, it is necessary to look for them to be beautiful, regularly formed. Any inventive, and especially dubious, name of the work should be completely avoided. There are enough beautiful names in Lithuanian. 3. Drg. Valančienė from Šiauliai district writes: “You explained that the name of the month June comes from the word June, and I heard this explanation of the names of the months in school 40 years ago. 2 These names are now pronounced according to the first pronunciation: Dīva, Gīva, Vīva (R. V.). Kazys Ulvydas. Let’s speak and write correctly | 3 names” (the author of the letter explains the BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 names of the months and about June she says: “ploughmen sowed grains and buržydavę – sitting marked the place where they have already sown”). It should be said that both juniper and juniper, as well as birch or juniper are related words. Birch branches were used for burning. Thus, June and biržyti are inseparable from the word birch. 4.A listener from Vlnėjus writes that in literary language next to the name of the tree „kaštūnas“ the nearby word „kaštūnas“ is used unnecessarily. Of course, it is not quite right that the same tree is called by two adjacent words, but it cannot be otherwise, because it is difficult to say which of these adjacent words should be left. Some of us are more accustomed to using chestnut, others – chestnut. Therefore, it is not by chance that some dictionaries give both these words. Sometimes the sense of language itself dictates, which adjacent words should be left in literary language, and which should be abandoned. Chestnut – in the case of chestnut, it is more difficult to solve this issue. Let us therefore leave it to time, to practical use. 1978.IV.1 Dear friends and listeners, After a two-week break, we are continuing our speech sessions, which will take place on the same day, i.e. Saturday, at the same time, i.e. 14:05. We apologize to those friends whose emails we could not answer in the promised time, we will try to answer at least part of those emails today. 1. Our hour listener dr. Zigmas Mickevičius from Kaunas asks whether the word veliumas should be used in literary language, what is the origin, meaning and value of this word, as well as what is the Kazys Ulvydas. Let's speak and write correctly | 4 relation of the word to the Lithuanian word BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 nuometas, whether nuometas can replace the word veliumas in literary language. First, let us make some remarks about the word vellum. The word comes from the Latin word velum, which means "sail". In French, the word voile is derived from the Latin velum, which means a very thin, simply transparent fabric used by women to cover their face or other things. The Polish word welon is derived from the Latin velum, which means, among other things, the covering of the young head. The word véliumas in Lithuanian sounds very Latin. It is a Latin word with a Lithuanian ending. Only in Lithuanian the word veliumas does not mean a sail, but a kind of veil, a covering of the young head. The author of the letter, having found the word in new fiction (in a collection of short stories), wanted to find out its meaning, but could not because he could not find it in the International Dictionary of Words or in the Dictionary of Modern Language. This word in Lithuanian has a special meaning of covering the young head and it is necessary for the language. He did not enter the dictionaries by chance. The Lithuanian word nuoketas cannot replace the international word veliumas, because nuoketas mainly means a head covering of a married woman. Thus, the international word veliumas can perfectly exist in Lithuanian, and it is understandable that it should be recorded and explained both in the dictionary of international words and in the dictionary of Lithuanian literary language. 2. Kėdainiai district An employee of the Okainiai collective farm office asks which gender the word nail belongs to – male or female. So how to say: those nails or those nails, slate nails or slate nails? Kazys Ulvydas. Let's speak and write correctly | 5 In literary language, the word nail is of BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 feminine gender. We turn it to vinas, -ies, -iai, vinį, vinimi, vinyje; dgs. : vinys, vinių, vinamms… Therefore, it is necessary to say: ta nagas, tos vinys, slate nail, slate nails. By the way, on the same occasion we would like to remind all the listeners of the language hours that many questions of language practice, many questions of the meaning of words, pronunciation and use of words and standardization can be clarified by themselves simply from the “Dictionary of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language”, which was published in 1972 and which, fortunately, can still be obtained in many bookstores. If you can’t get it locally, you should ask the local bookstore to help you get that valuable, capital book from Vilnius, where it is still available. We boldly recommend it to all native language lovers because it can help everyone who writes a lot in the field of language culture. A little time will pass, and that book, which now costs only three rubles with a penny, will become the greatest bibliographical rarity, because such books will only come out in a few dozen or tens of years. So, while it is still possible, make sure, dear listeners, to buy the “Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian Language”. 3. We will answer Dr. A letter by Juozas Didžbanis sent from the Kolkhoz "Bolshevik" in the district of Šakiai. The author of the letter does not like the word period, which is often heard when weather forecasts are announced on the radio. The word period is a good one and there is no reason to avoid it. When the narrator says: At the end of the period, a cooling is expected, it is already said earlier what period is meant: a month, two weeks, a week, five or three days, etc. Of course, if it is not stated what time period is meant, then the word period is meaningless. As far as I have noticed, the weather reports are always clear, always stated in advance what time period is meant. Then the word period is clear and usable. Kazys Ulvydas. Taisyklingai kalbėkime ir rašykime | 6 BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Remembering the weather reports read on the radio or television, one should reproach the editors of the weather bureau, and at the same time the radio and television editors (but, of course, not the speakers, because they receive the text already prepared by the editors) for the unsuitable local in the gusts. Although the word gūsis is of non-Lithuanian origin (see German guss), it is still tolerated in literary language if it is used properly. The mouth means a gap, a jump, a swing, e.g. : The wind is blowing in gusts. In Russian, the word corresponds to взрыв. The Žemaičiai say: The wind blows in gusts (so-called, such swaying, gusts). Rusai sako: The wind is strong in gusts. The Russian construction в порывах in no way can be translated blindly by the local in bursts. Only the cheerful whiffs of the craftsman would fit here. But since the word gūsis is of non-Lithuanian origin and, moreover, not known to all Lithuanians, the best fit in such a case would be the substitute of the pure Lithuanian word in spaces. Thus, where the weather forecasts incorrectly say: Wind in gusts strong, Lithuanian should say: Wind occasionally strong.