A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

General discussion about learning languages

Which animal's foot should be used to name a crowbar?

A pig's foot, obviously!
3
30%
A doe's foot
0
No votes
A crow's foot
4
40%
something else, explained below
3
30%
 
Total votes: 10

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A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby StringerBell » Mon Jan 24, 2022 3:22 pm

So I just posted on my log that I came across the Italian term for crowbar, which is un piede di porco (a pig's foot).

Even without knowing what kind of tool a "un piede di porco" was, reading that someone used a pig's foot to pry open a door I immediately pictured a crowbar. Then I started thinking about how genius it was to call a crowbar "a pig's foot" because in my opinion a crowbar looks much more like a pig's foot than a crow's foot. Aloyse said in French it's called a doe's foot. That's better than a crow's foot but I think a pig's foot really captures the essence of what the tool looks like. RDearman seems to think that a crowbar does look like a crow's foot.

-So, what is a "crowbar" called in your native/target language?

-Which name do you think most accurately captures what it looks like?

-Is there anything you've come across in another language that you think is genius because it better describes what something looks like/does more accurately than your native language does?
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby Mista » Mon Jan 24, 2022 4:38 pm

In Norwegian, it is called a "kubein", which means "cow's leg", or alternatively, "cow's bone". Maybe a cow's leg bone is strong enough to pry open a door?
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jan 24, 2022 4:45 pm

In Spanish, it's just a palanca - lever. Or more specifically "barreta palanca" - a bar lever.
I like the doe imagery, it's what I learned from French.

As a teen around construction workers, a few slang terms were thrown around, not worth repeating. :lol: You can guess.

Now, how about a "bathroom toad"? sapo de baño - do you know what that is?
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby iguanamon » Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:09 pm

I always heard it in Spanish as "palanca" it's etymology is from Latin via Greek and refers to a log or a big branch of a tree:
RAE Diccionario wrote:1. f. Máquina simple que consiste esencialmente en una barra rígida que se apoya y puede girar sobre un punto, y que sirve para transmitir una fuerza. Del lat. palanga, y este del gr. φάλαγξ, -γγος phálanx, -ngos 'rodillo', 'tronco'. (Simple device that essentially consists ot a rigid bar that can be supported and turned over a point and serves to transfer force. (my own translation)

In Portuguese it is a "pé-de-cabra"- a goat's foot.
In Haitian Creole it is a "pensklou"; "pens": iron bar (pincers; tong); "klou": nail
In Catalan it is an "alçaprem" from "alçar": to lift and "prem": squeeze; grab; also "palanca"
I don't know what it may be in Ladino or down-island creole. The dictionaries I have for those languages are not comprehensive enough, but I could circumlocute if I needed to. It hasn't come up yet. I'd probably try "palanka" from Spanish for Ladino, and "pensklou" for Kwéyòl.
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:43 pm

I suspect that the 'crow' in English crowbar is more complex than it appears. I think it might be derived from 'crop', which is a murky word feeding into both 'croup' and 'group' and also 'crow' for reasons that will be become clear.

The word originally referred to a pouch (in a bend) in the gullet of a bird where food is stored. That this then referred to certain grains led to the word being used to represent 'crop' as a cereal plant. The first meaning carried on into the word for the condition 'croup' which involves larynx swelling. Which also has links with the sound made when a throat is obstructed (think of craw and things stuck in it. The modern Dutch for this is 'krop', but the middle-Dutch is kraeye). Another word jaw can be looked at. Originally there was no distinction made between cheek/jaw/upper throat in common language and older derivatives: chaff, chough, cough... all flow from it. The word also refers to the noise a crow or rook makes, but also to general bird calls and even the yelping of dogs!

Many dictionaries just trace the etymology of crow to an imitation of the sound the bird makes or to 'Anglo-Saxon' crawa without saying much about what 'crawa' is or means. Or the multitude of cognates and related derivatives. Cry, crevice, crew...

French crever which means to burst open/gougue-out/puncture. Spanish escarbar = scrabble, scratch, but also escarabajo = beetle (and think what the end of it's leg or 'claw' looks like).

I think the crow in crow bar is probably a bar for cracking something open as in French. The word origin and its antecedents/derivatives are everywhere.
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby luke » Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:36 pm

A crowbar looks like the profile of a crow.

Example: https://www.deviantart.com/collip99/art ... -191639284

Of crows, wikipedia wrote:Crows are omnivorous, and their diet is very diverse. The origin of placing scarecrows in grain fields resulted from the crow's incessant damaging and scavenging, although crows assist farmers by eating insects otherwise attracted to their crops.

So there seems to be a synergy between what crows do and what a crowbar can do.
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:39 pm

Speaking of scarecrows. When I was a boy there was an old local name for scarecrow which was unusual: a 'crowboggart'. By extension it came to mean someone who looked a bit shabby. Well actually a lot shabby.
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Re: A pig's foot vs. a crow's foot: what do you think a crowbar looks like?

Postby ourrafl » Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:07 am

In simplified Chinese, the crowbar is called 物理学圣剑, lit. the Excalibur of Physics 8-)

Why do we call it like this? Actually it's from the video game Half-life series. The protagonist, Dr. Gordon Freeman, who is a theoretical physicist, uses a crowbar as his weapon. And gradually this turned into a meme in the cyber world of simplied Chinese.

Back to the subject, I think a crowbar looks more like a crow's foot. But even more like a goose's head, plus neck.
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