I heard a 79-year-old Englishman interviewed on NPR today who said he was a member of a band called "The Zimmers." The interviewer asked if the name wasn't slang for something, but I missed what what was said. Other than being a pretty common German family name, what's a zimmer to you Brits?
Word has it that my mother's aunt used to say, "Zimmer, zimmer, zimmer" as an exclamation, to mean something like, "Oh dear" or "What are you going to do?" I imagine it was just something she made up, though. I haven't thought about that in a a long time.
Yes, it's cognate with English timber. There's also kammer '(small) room' which is a borrowing from Latin camera 'room', which also yields English chamber via French.
The photographic device developed from the camera obscura 'dark room'.
The word is used in its original sense in the legal profession. When a judge tries a session "in camera" it is when the session is held in private (in a room that is closed to all but the judge, the accused and any necessary officials, in other words).
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
