I fear that I must deny this!

‘Popty ping’ literally means ‘oven which goes ping’, and it’s sort of an urban myth that it’s the official Welsh word for ‘microwave’. It’s a bit of a joke word, kind of like saying that the official English word for ‘alcoholic beverage’ is ‘tipple’, or that the word we all use in English for ‘friend’ is ‘ol’ buddy ol’ pal ol’ chum’. Saying ‘popty ping’ seriously in conversation with a Welsh person would earn you an eye roll and a weary sigh.

Unfortunately, the Welsh word for ‘microwave’ is ‘meicrodon’, which isn’t quite as funny, but does make me think of a tiny mafia boss.

However, there are some very funny Welsh words and phrases:

• pili-pala - butterfly
• smwddio - to iron (literally pronounced ‘smoothio’)
• pysgod wibli wobli - jellyfish (this is another one like popty ping, in that it’s not wrong per se, but it’s not used in common parlance; more as a joke. It literally means ‘wibbly wobbly fish’)
• sboncen - squash (as in the game, not the act of crushing something like a tyrant)
• igam ogam - to walk a bit funny, like when you’re drunk or giddy 
• cerdded ling-di-long - to walk slowly, to meander (’cerdded’ is ‘to walk’)
• ‘sgod a sglod - fish and chips (’fish’ in Welsh is ‘pysgod’, and ‘chips’ is ‘sglodion’, so the two words are shortened to create an adorable rhyming phrase)
  

And we have some bloody phenomenal idiomatic phrases, too:

• rhoi’r ffidil yn y to - to give up (literally ‘to put the fiddle in the roof’)
• siarad fel hen het - to gossip (literally ‘to talk like an old hat’)
• paid â chodi’r pais ar ôl piso - the equivalent of ‘don’t cry over spilt milk’ (literally ‘don’t lift the petticoat after you’ve pissed’)
  
• bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn - raining heavily (literally ‘raining old women and sticks’)
  
• fel rhech mewn pot jam - useless (literally ‘like a fart in a jam pot’ - this one is a fairly modern one, obviously!)
  
• a ddwg ŵy a ddwg fwy - the equivalent of ‘a leopard never changes its spots’ (literally ‘if he steals one egg, he’ll steal more’)
  
• tynnu nyth cacwn ar fy mhen - to cause trouble for yourself (literally ‘pulling a wasps’ nest on my head’)
• tynnu blewyn o'i drwyn - to upset / annoy someone (literally ‘pull a hair from his nose’)
  
• berwi fel cawl pys - to be angry (literally ‘boiling like pea soup’)
• heb ei fai, heb ei eni - no-one is perfect (literally ‘without flaws, without birth’ / ‘if you have no flaws, you’re not born’)
  

So, don’t worry. ‘Popty ping’ might be a bit of an urban legend, but you can totally have an absolutely great time shouting at a butterfly to give up on the ironing and meander to the chip shop in the rain.

(Which would be - give or take a few grammatical nuances, as my Welsh grammar is incredibly rusty - ‘hei, pili-pala, pam ydych chi’n dal i smwddio? Dylech chi roi'r ffidil yn y to a cherdded ling-di-long i’r ‘sgod a sglod, er ei bod hi’n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn!’)

Disclaimer, because all of these posts get the same response:

1. I’m not a fluent Welsh speaker. I speak it conversationally most days, but I seldom write it, which means that my grammar is not A+ fab. Maybe C+. Apol for all the errors.
   
2. Pls no comments along the lines of ‘omg wtf welsh is ridic lol’ because Welsh is very important and lovely and has been wronged terribly throughout history and almost eradicated by people who think it’s pointless, and I feel very protective of it.
3. WELSH HAS MORE VOWELS THAN ENGLISH