🚀 go-pugleaf

MSZ schreef/citeerde op Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:57:57 +0100:

> > > > What do you think of the hypothesis that the name of the bird was given
> > > > as a surname originally to someone who could sing very nice?
> > >
> > >     In Italian, I think it is unlikely. When someone sings beautifully, we
> > > say that s/he sings like a nightingdale.
> > 
> > Same in Dutch.
> 
> Well, in Polish we now also have the same common locution, but I think
> it's not so much old (it must have come to Poland maybe from Italy in
> the late Renaissance, durign the time of the Queen Bona Sforza (lat
> XVIIth century), together with many other common expressions. The notion
> "singing like nightingale" was criticised still in the beginning of the
> XIXth century (i.a. by the famous Polis poet, Adam Mickiewicz, as a part
> of a "foreign fashion", whereas we have many OWN nice-singing birds, but
> unfortunately he does not enumerate them). 

Xenophobia brought about by a bird of less than 10 cm in height - that
is TRUE xenophobia! ;-)
 
> On the contrary - weren't it you who told us about a Dutch proverb:
> "joyful as a finch"?

No, that must have been someone else. I can't really think of a Dutch
proverb with "vink" in it - but that doesn't mean anything. There must
be thousands of proverbs that I don't know of, and I don't own an
encyclopedia of proverbs.

> How does it sound in Dutch?

I imagine that it would be something like "zo blij als een vink" or
"zo opgewekt als een vink".

> It seems to me that I have heard about
> something similar in French "joyeux comme un pinson"?

I coudn't tell you, my knowledge of French is far too limited.

> We don't have any
> similar proverb in Polish, but on the contrary we have a nice poem (for
> children) by Jan Brzechwa about a concert of a finch.

I did a quick search on the word combination "als een vink" = "as/like
a finch". I found a.o. a text on the XVIth century church reformer
Petrus Datheen (FYI:
<http://www.omsionswil.nl/Levensbeschijvingen/datheen.htm>). Among his
works is a psalter. In the preface he cites another church reformer,
Johannes Calvijn (this is the Dutch form of his name, I don't know the
original spelling - Calvin? Calvinus?), who wrote on the importance of
singing Psalms in church: "Laat ons niet zingen als een vink, een
nachtegaal of papegaai ..., want die zingen zonder verstand." ["Let us
not sing like a finch, a nightingale or parrot ..., for they sing
without reason/wit."]
I don't think that "sing like a finch" ever got to be a real proverb,
but I may very well be wrong.

Now for something a bit different. If someone sings, others will
listen, right? Now: "listen" and "finch" go very well together in
Dutch. The Dutch word for eavesdropper (someone who secretly listens
to what others are saying) is called a "luistervink" = listen[ing]
finch".

And finally, for something completely different. "Vink" is also used
in "slavink", "blinde vink" and "rundervink", which are rolls of
chopped meat, wrapped in bacon (slavink), veal (blinde vink) or beef
(rundervink). 
-- 
There's a special trick I do with fat-free food: I throw it away.