Re: CHAT: Our opinions of what can be called 'winter' (was: OT: Merry Christmas!)

* Tristan McLeay said on 2004-12-28 16:21:25 +0100
> On 29 Dec 2004, at 1.41 am, taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> > * Tristan McLeay said on 2004-12-28 15:33:45 +0100
> > > Cold strong winds do of course exist, and are probably stronger
> > > than hot strong winds, but they are mostly at night, when you're
> > > protected by your walls and doona (duvet, I think, is the standard
> > > word, but I make no promises).
>
> Maybe I should've said 'international', it's standard enough for Oz!
> :)
According to wordnet, a duvet...

  duvet
       n : a soft quilt usually filled with the down of the eider [syn:
            {eiderdown}, {continental quilt}]

Which sounds kinda... thin?

> > Doona, neat! Where's it from?
>
> *Apparently* a trademark. If a particular company/product is cited it
> is 'Feduna' which was a German company that imported doonas into
> Melbourne I believe, [..] I think it dates from the 19th century, but
> take that with a grain of salt.
>
> > In Norway, we use "dyner"
>
> The obvious question, then, is how is 'dyne' pronounced?
[d*n@], where * is a rounded [i] with extruded lips (they stick out in
something resembling a square) and possibly also advanced tongue root,
as it has a lovely hollow, metallic sound (veddy pdetty when sung!). It
is closer to [i] than French [u] in "lune" and German [ü] in "Würst",
these are in fact between the Norwegian y and u (barred u) to my ears.
The Norwegian barred u has the same lip-rounding as its non-barred u,
only the tongue/jaw-position is different.

(ObConlang: Taruven has both of these weirdos as I'm very fond of them.)

"Dyne" derives from norse "dúnn" [du:n:], which then meant light, flimsy
fluffy stuff (the fill in the dyne) but which now only means "down" as
in eiderdown.

> Perhaps the standard assumption is wrong and a Norwegian word somehow
> managed to sneak into Australian English. Which would be quite a feat,
> unless it was a Norwegian trademark.
If the Germans got it from norse and you got it from the Germans...

> > (dyne+indefinite plural) year round though sometimes one talks about
> > "sommerdyne", which is slightly thinner for the summer (though of
> > course sometimes it's so hot one sleeps on top of it instead of
> > hiding underneath), and "vinterdyne", which is slightly thicker for
> > the winter (but sometimes it is necessary with extra woolen blankets
> > on top, aka. "ullpledd").
>
> Depending on exactly how much thinner it was, I might call it a
> comforter, but I don't think of them as being in the same category as
> doonas, more like non-itchy blanket replacements.
A dyne (even sommerdyne) is at least three centimeters thick (when not
compressed, they can compress to less than a centimeter thick) and ought
to be fluffed up every morning, and there are no seams going straight
through, but channels that are filled with down (I once had one with
down, it all collected in the foot end so that I'd freeze up top...) or
artificial fibers. I use the latter as it costs many many times less.

Prior to going abroad (as in: Mediterranean. Sweden, Denmark and Finland
ain't "abroad"!) for the first time I didn't understand the term
"between the sheets" as of course you don't sleep between sheets, you
stay between the dyne and one piece of (cotton) sheet!

It took several months of *ghasp* more than 20 degrees Celsius during
the night to teach me that sometimes just a sheet on top is more than
enough. But then I think a sunny -5 C and no wind is t-shirt weather too :)


t.

Reply