15 Words with no English equivalent

1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian)
The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.
 
2. Yuputka (Ulwa)
A word made for walking in the woods at night, it’s the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.
 
3. Lampadato (Italian)
Addicted to the infra-red glow of tanning salons? This word describes you.
 
4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
The Yiddish have scores of words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.
 
5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
You know that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet? This is the word for it.
 
6. Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish) 
A word that would aptly describe the prevailing fashion trend among American men under 40, it means one who wears the shirt tail outside of his trousers.
 
7. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian) 
“Hmm, now where did I leave those keys?” he said, pana po’oing. It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.
 
8. Gumusservi (Turkish) 
Meteorologists can be poets in Turkey with words like this at their disposal. It means moonlight shining on water.
 
9. Vybafnout (Czech) 
A word tailor-made for annoying older brothers—it means to jump out and say boo.
 
10. Mencolek (Indonesian) 
You know that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it.
 
11. Faamiti (Samoan) 
To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.
 
12. Glas wen (Welsh) 
A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.
 
13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.
 
14. Boketto (Japanese)
It’s nice to know that the Japanese think enough of the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking to give it a name.
 
15. Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.

Shakespeare's influence on language...

Mountweazels

When I worked with Andrew, I used to write a lot of internal communications (which I am sure he loved to read). One "trick" that I used occasionally in longer emails/attachments was to put something in the text to see if people had read that far.  Sometimes I made an obvious error and waited for someone to spot it. At other times I would write something like "The first person who has read this far and emails me will win a prize!".

What I didn't realise was that there is a term for such entries; they are called Mountweazels.  The main reason that Mountweazels are added to text is to help spot plagiarism - i.e. a copyright trap.

There are lots of text Mountweazels but also some graphical ones too. Some street maps have rogue streets included to help with copyright control.

There are said to be many fictitious entries in various Encyclopaedias and books, including The New Columbia Encyclopedia from 1975 contains a fictitious entry on Lillian Virginia Mountweazel (1942-1973). Her biography claims she was a fountain designer and photographer, best known for Flags Up!, a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes. It was all a lie!

Ye olde thorn

You learn something new everyday...


When you see a cliched sign that says "Ye Olde Shoppe", we are all tempted to pronounce the first word "yee".  However, the "y" is actually a tudor letter called thorn that was sometimes shown as the strange letter shown below.  The sound of thorn was a "th", thereby turning "Ye" into "The" that we use today. 

Language

From my oldest brother's Facebook update - a clever use of language...

A linguistics professor was lecturing to her class one day.

"In English," she said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

Dutch courage

My old friend Jan (pronounced Yarn), his wife and 2 kids came up for the weekend and we had a great laugh.  We basically ate and drank and chatted. We ended Saturday with the film 'Paul' as recommended by his oldest son Anthony. It's a really funny film, with loads of 'in jokes' based on science fiction classic movies.

Anthony is almost 16 and is extremely clever (not sure who he takes after!). I have no doubt he will go to University and be very successful. Pete and I have already suggested that he should be aiming for a place at Cambridge... mainly so that we can get on a train and be his guests are the student bar where beer is £1 a pint!

Jan's wife is Dutch and Jan has picked up a lot, having lived in Assen for a number of years until recently. The boys are bilingual of course. So this weekend I learned how to pronounce 'Beach' and 'Turd' in Dutch. It wasn't planned that way, but my pronunciation of the word 'Strand' sounded more like 'Stront'. At least it gave the Dutch speakers in the room a laugh. I am not sure how I will work either word into conversation though.  Perhaps it would go something like...


Er is een stront op het strand.

Words

I was in Edinburgh last week with a groups of clients and I noted that some words and phrases kept cropping up in different presentations.  Some are cliches, some are just popular at the moment:

"so on and so forth"

Now this is a phrase that I doubt people use in daily speech, but when they stand in front of a group, something strange happens. They (and I) used phrases that we have never used before.  I don't like this one - why not just say "etcetera"?

"myself"

I hear this a lot during presentations and interviews.  Rather than saying "me", people say "myself" as if they want to sound clever.

"outwith"

Not a word that I heard until I worked for a Scottish company.  It's a commonly used word north of the border and there is nothing wrong with it - I mention it just to show how strange language can be.  Everyone knows it's meaning in Scotland, but if you ask someone in London, they assume that it's defination is 'without'.  It actually means 'outside' or 'beyond'.  For example, "the document must not be used outwith this company".

"iteration"

Used over and over during several sessions and not a word I have ever used.  It means 'the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result'.  I will now try and shoehorn it into conversations.

"it goes something like this..."

A phrase that my manager uses constantly.  It's his way of pausing and also emphasising that he has considered the topic carefully before.  I think that he overuses it and therefore makes it less effective.

The French are coming!

I came across a very long list of French words that are used regularly in English and have edited it down. It's amazing how many words we use from other languages and don't even register the fact. So, for all of those stupid English people that don't like the French... here are just a selection of phrases that you may want to avoid from now on as they are all French.

aide-mémoire "memory aid"

à la carte "on the menu"

art déco "decorative art" - Short for art décoratif.

art nouveau "new art"

au fait "conversant, informed"

bon appétit "good appetite" - The closest English equivalent is "Enjoy your meal."

carte blanche "blank card" - Free hand, ability to do whatever you want/need.

chic "stylish" - Chic sounds more chic than "stylish.

cul-de-sac "bottom (butt) of the bag" - An English dead-end street.

debutante "beginner"

double entendre "double hearing" - A 'Carry On' moment.

encore "again"

en route "on route" - On the way.

fait accompli "done deed"

faux pas "false step, trip" - foolish mistake.

gauche "left, awkward"

ménage à trois "household of three" - Sexual threesome.

objet d'art "art object"

raison d'être "reason for being"

soirée "evening" - An elegant party.

soupçon "suspicion" - A small amount of something.

souvenir "memory, keepsake"

tête-à-tête "head to head"

tour de force "turn of strength" - Something which takes a great deal of skill to accomplish.

vol-au-vent "flight of the wind" - Light pastry shell filled with meat or fish with sauce.

An important exploration of language

Did you know that the “ps” sound is not common in Spanish? Speakers in certain areas change words to a more comfortable pronunciation. For example, Pepsi is pronounced Pesi in many parts of Spain. So the drinks giant has decided to make a joke of it and paid Fernando Torres a huge amount of money to make this advert.

He's fab and can do no wrong of course...

My favourite quotes/sayings/lines

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
Paul Valery

"I'm not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know that I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not blonde."
Dolly Parton

"You all want it now. You think you deserve it just because you want it? It doesn't work like that. You have to earn it."
(from Swimming With Sharks)

"The harder I practice, the luckier I get"
Gary Player

"Here's to alcohol, the cause of and solution to all life's problems"
Homer Simpson

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive"
Sir Walter Scott

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
(from Monty Pythons Life Of Brian)

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying."
Woody Allen

[Talking about boxers...]
Frank Drebin: Hector Savage. From Detroit. Ex-boxer. His real name was Joey Chicago.
Ed Hocken: Oh, yeah. He fought under the name of Kid Minneapolis.
Nordberg: I saw Kid Minneapolis fight once. In Cincinnati.
Frank Drebin: No you're thinking of Kid New York. He fought out of Philly.
Ed Hocken: He was killed in the ring in Houston. By Tex Colorado. You know, the Arizona Assassin.
Nordberg: Yeah, from Dakota. I don't remember it was North or South.
Frank Drebin: North. South Dakota was his brother. From West Virginia.
Ed Hocken: You sure know your boxing.
Frank Drebin: All I know is never bet on the white guy.
(From Naked Gun 2 and a half)

Wordle

It's a frosty Sunday morn' in England, but the sun is out and it's going to be a lovely day. Later this afternoon I'm off to Scotland for a couple of days - work related unfortunately. I've been to Edinburgh dozens of times and really like the city - it has everything you want and is nice and compact. Here's a picture I took last Christmas when I was there - it's looking down Princes Street through the big wheel.

I found a link to the site Wordle on another blog and I think it's brilliant. It allows you to produce art from words and I fully intend collecting a load of words together and producing some art for the living room. You can change fonts, layouts and colours to suit your mood. Here's an attempt using the words from the last blog entry, with all the numbers taken out...

It's only words...

I saw this article on the BBC website and it's language related, following on from a recent post. The article has gathered favourite words along with their meaning. A few of them made me laugh and all made me ask the question how and why did these words come about?!

Defenestrate - To throw something out of a window.
Omphaloskepsis - is self-absorbed, naval-gazing.
Mallemaroking - the carousing of seamen in icebound ships [how many jokes could I make about this one?]
Tmesis - To break one word with another. For example: dis-bloomin-graceful, un-flippin-believable.
Ischial callosities - refers to the leather-like pads on a monkey's bum.
Petrichor - the sweet smell of rain on dry earth.
Tintinnabulation - describes a sound made by the ringing of a bell.
Borborygmus - the rumbling sound that comes from an empty stomach.
Slubberdegullion - means a worthless person. [you could imagine Mr Burns in the Simpsons using this and, in fact, when looking this up on the net, he did use it!]

Ich verstehe nur bahnhof

I am not a cunning linguist. I would love to learn another langauge and will get around to it one day - perhaps in a burst of intensive lessons. I am concerned as to whether I have the right kind of brain for languages, but we shall see.

In my last job I worked for a German company called MLP and over the years, with some people where English was not the first language, obviously mainly German. I worked with Dominic in the same office for a couple of years and he had this talent (I can see his head growing as he reads this) of hearing a word in English, understanding it's use and then remembering it - rarely having to ask about it again. What a git! I doubt I will ever pick language up like that.

My German kolleges would sometimes ask "is that the correct way to say...", knowing that they were usually correct anyway! Some times, I had to think carefully about the best English word or phrase. At those times, you really begin to appreciate how complex language is. For example, using one word or another comes naturally, but when you analyse it closely, you realise there is often no clear reason why XXXX is better than YYYY... it just is the right word! Some crazy English:

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

During my time working for a German company, I learnt very little of the language and I regret that. But, I did learn a few stock phrases and my favourite is "Ich verstehe nur bahnhof".

This was taught to me by Lutz (an ex- colleague in Wiesloch) and translates as "I understand only station"... which is meaningless of course. But when you consider a tourist who is listening to a train announcement of locations a train may stop at, all he picks up is "bahnhof" i.e. he can only understand the word "station" of the announcement. In other words, the English version would be "I don’t understand anything" or "it's all Greek to me" or "it's all double dutch".

This blog entry is dedicated to Dominic and Marco (the two smiling guys in the picture) and the lovely Kerstin, who together proved all German stereotypes wrong.