Northern Irish Rhyming Slang: A Lexicographical Lacuna

For a long time now students of rhyming slang have been well served by a number of dictionaries. British lexicographers have nonetheless focussed mostly on the English variety of this slang and have given scant or no attention to other less productive regional varieties in the British Isles. While it has long been known that this form of slang is used in Northern Ireland, lexicographers have not hitherto noticed the vernacular specimens it has yielded there. This article treads new ground by scrutinizing the evidence available for Northern Irish rhyming slang and analysing its distinctive features. The last part of the article unearths a rich subset of the slang lexicon that has largely remained hidden to compilers of dictionaries

COVID-19, the beer flu; or, the disease of many names

Since the coronavirus outbreak began to spread worldwide in the early months of 2020, English speakers have been coming up with new names for the disease at a rate of knots. The myriad unofficial synonyms for COVID-19 that we currently have at our disposal provide an extreme example of overlexicalisation, and it is not so much the number that is impressive as the sheer speed at which they have been coined. This study is based on a personally compiled corpus of tweets covering the period from late January to late May 2020 and aims to work out what mechanisms underpin the creation and use of some two hundred and seventy synonyms, paying particular attention to the role of slang, wordplay, verbal humour, bigotry and xenophobia. The author identifies and discusses a set of categories that help to better understand the attitudes behind these words, some of which bespeak a desire to confront the grim reality of disease, while others – the majority, in fact – seek to denigrate and stigmatise its “ideal victims” (the baby boomers) or its “evil perpetrators” (the Chinese). In a different context, this study might be deemed just a celebration of the creative levity and wit of English speakers when faced with adversity. In these dark times, it is also a sad testimony to how some of our primitive fears have come to be reflected in our pandemic lexicon

Comparative analysis of domestic water heating thermosiphon systems tested according to the Standard ISO 9459-2

Permiso concedido para subir el documentoThe Standard ISO 9459-2 is a standard for the characterization of thermal performance of domestic water heating systems without auxiliary heating. In this study, 18 domestic water heating thermosiphon systems have been tested according to this international standard. The objective of the paper is to carry out a comparative analysis of the results obtained in these systems as a function of their volume and type of heat exchanger (tubular and double jacket). A comparative analysis of systems performance will be carried out by calculating the performance without thermal loss (a1/A) and solar fraction fSOL in different reference locations for different volume/area ratios. Also, a comparative analysis of systems performance and solar fraction will be carried out at different locations between a tubular heat exchanger tank and a double jacket heat exchanger tank. The different values obtained will be compared for the storage tank’s heat loss coefficient (Us). It will determinate the useful energy (energy with temperature above 45ºC) for the degree of mixing in the storage tank during a draw-off test

Thermodynamic Limits of the Use of PCM Simultaneously in Photovoltaic Modules and in Building

Permiso obtenido por la institución para subir el documentoThe paper quantifies the thermodynamic limits on the energy and exergy use that would result from the use of PCM in photovoltaic BIPV modules versus not using PCM, by limiting module temperature to 298 K and the thermal energy use in buildings according to a set of hypotheses. The results obtained have been extended to six different climates. The results show that the maximum use of PCM depends heavily on the climate, therefore in hot climates as Seville, Cairo and Nairobi, the improvements in energy efficiency are very important (multiplied from 6 to 9 times), while in cold climates as London and Helsinki, the improvements are not that significant (multiplied from 1.5 to 2 times). The exergetic efficiency improvements range of about 5% for all climates, due to the low operating temperature of the PCM. These materials requirements are significant, ranging between 31 and 193 kg/m2, with thicknesses between 3.9 and 24.2 cm/m2

Etymological Myths and Compound Etymologies in Rhyming Slang

Knowledge of how rhyming slang works has often led scholars and laypeople to assume, without a shred of evidence, that many words of unknown derivation have their origins in this form of slang. Some of these assumptions are based on the premise that, if two synonymous words or phrases rhyme, one of them must derive from the other, while others hinge on the supposed existence of a full form whose second element helps unravel the puzzle. This tendency to folk-etymologise by resorting to rhyme is also reflected in many terms resulting from a conflation of a non-rhyming slang word and an underlying rhyme, the former usually being regarded as an elliptical version of the full rhyming slang term, rather than one of its etymons. Drawing on data from a range of primary and secondary sources, this article examines the inner workings of a number of false but widely entertained rhyming slang etymologies and shows how some of the mechanisms that triggered them have long been used in the creation of genuine folk-etymological elaborations