Comments on: Improve my pan-linguistic wordpower

Question: Improve my pan-linguistic wordpower

unSane — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:12:18 -0800

What words should English steal from other languages?

Apropos of this post on the blue I'm looking for words like SchadenFreude, flaneur, kabuki or gestalt which are not part of the current English lexicon, have no direct analog in modern English, but express useful, important or interesting concepts.

(Many of these words seem to come from technical disciplines or have strong cultural overload -- that's fine with me).

By: yclipse

yclipse — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:15:17 -0800

gemuetlich, gemuetlichkeit

By: unSane

unSane — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:19:17 -0800

Hey, I already use gemuetlich!

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:22:06 -0800

ersatz

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:27:33 -0800

A second person plural pronoun. Y'all, youse. They're available in dialect English, but really need to be folded back into standard English.

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:30:07 -0800

A Swede might recommend you steal "lagom" which means, essentially, "just enough to suit my needs" or "not too little, nor too much." I find this word irritating since it requires you to bring all of your preconceptions and prejudices about a person to bear in evaluating something as simple as how much coffee they should get. Maybe I just overthink it, though.

By: smorange

smorange — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:34:47 -0800

From Korea: jeong. It's hard to describe, but this pdf does a decent job of it.

By: Mo Nickels

Mo Nickels — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:40:24 -0800

Ersatz, gemuetlich, and gemuetlichkeit are already in English.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:42:02 -0800

Schadenfreude, flaneur, kabuki and gestalt are also part of the English vocabulary.

By: These Premises Are Alarmed

These Premises Are Alarmed — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:42:20 -0800

A collective noun for nieces and nephews. My wife and I use 'sobrinos'.

By: Tomorrowful

Tomorrowful — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:43:19 -0800

Ersatz is definitely already absorbed into English - I see it on as often as I do a lot of other relatively uncommon words, and never written in italics.

Shadenfreude and gestalt, too, though shadenfreude not as much as I'd like - IMHO, it's one of the most egregious words-for-which-we-have-no-substitute.

As for my own contribution: Chutzpah! (though it doesn't get spellchecked as incorrect, so maybe it's more mainstream than I thought?)

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:45:00 -0800

Japanese:
懐かしい : natsukashii =
"That brings back memories, doesn't it."

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:53:55 -0800

Choriki Shorai! (Superpowers Summoned!)

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:58:24 -0800

A friend of mine (non-Japanese) loves the word umami and uses it at every chance he gets. It describes a particular flavor which there isn't a word for in English.

By: BinGregory

BinGregory — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:04:50 -0800

geram (n) malay - that urge you get to pinch a cute baby's cheeks, or the urge to tell off a coworker who deserves it. Basically an overwhelming urge that you have to struggle to suppress. It's a kind of basic emotion that we somehow don't have a word for.

By: strangeguitars

strangeguitars — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:09:01 -0800

差不多 (cha4 bu duo1) is good because it means "approximately" but it is often used as an exclamation.

By: Laugh_track

Laugh_track — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:16:05 -0800

Neat question! A few words that I like:

Insha'Allah (Arabic): Covered here. Often abbreviated to iA.

Chigaimasu (Japanese): (/chih-GUY-moss/) I haven't heard any more succinct, polite way to say "you're wrong." It literally means "it's different", but it is in polite Japanese.

Como? (Spanish): It means, "what?" lit. "how?" But more polite. (when you can't say "excuse me?" or "what?" or "hunh?")

In Brazilian Portugues they have a word for that inflatable guy who is seen flapping around in front of car dealerships. It's like "boneco du posco" or something. I don't know how to spell it.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:17:52 -0800

I dislike the awkwardness of formations like 'to be able to' in English, and sometimes wish there could be one-word replacements for them like the Romance languages have.

By: Laugh_track

Laugh_track — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:18:30 -0800

A friend of mine (non-Japanese) loves the word umami and uses it at every chance he gets. It describes a particular flavor which there isn't a word for in English.

Is it not "savory"?

By: greytape

greytape — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:20:35 -0800

'frieleux' is a lovely French adjective that means 'sensitive to the cold'.
(Great thread by the way.)

By: jeffmshaw

jeffmshaw — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:33:01 -0800

The Japanese exhortation "Ganbatte" doesn't have an English equivalent, and it's a great word -- it means a permutation of "work hard," "persevere", and "try your best" with a little bit of "good luck" thrown in.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:38:47 -0800

Is it not "savory"?

Follow the link, you can rewrite the Wikipedia article if you disagree. My friend could definitely be nuts. He randomly twitches sometimes.

By: kisch mokusch

kisch mokusch — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:39:50 -0800

doch!

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:46:19 -0800

I've got it: entarteur, French for "one who throws pies in the faces of others."

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:47:24 -0800

This Dane often uses the Danish word hyggelig to describe something that's... well, cozy but that word just doesn't cover it. Here's a pretty good definition I found:

Hygge is usually inadequately translated as cosiness. This is too simplistic: cosiness relates to physical surroundings – a jersey can be cosy, or a warm bed - whereas hygge has more to do with people's behaviour towards each other. It is the art of creating intimacy: a sense of comradeship, conviviality, and contentment rolled into one.

Friends meeting in the street might say that it has been hyggeligt to see each other, and someone who is fun to be with can be called a hyggelig fyr, when he would hardly be described as a cosy fellow. The truly emotive depth of the word hyggelig is best captured by considering its opposite, uhyggeligt, which means anything from cheerless through sinister to downright shocking and grisly.

[...] Achieving hygge generally involves being with friends and family, and eating and drinking.

There's more about hygge here.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:52:47 -0800

My favorite danish word: hygge. It's pronounced sort-of like "HYEUW-g-li" (the 'g' just gets swallowed by the back of your throat).

It means "sharing small, cozy, secure and happy with your friends." Well, not exactly, but the key elements are small and cozy and sharing--it could just as easily be with family, I suppose.

So, getting together with a bunch of old friends at a small pub might be hygge. If there was a storm outside and a warm fire inside the pub, that's even more hygge. If you all locked arms and started singing, that's ultra-hygge.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:53:17 -0800

Fucking JINX.

By: Laugh_track

Laugh_track — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:53:19 -0800

Follow the link, you can rewrite the Wikipedia article if you disagree. My friend could definitely be nuts. He randomly twitches sometimes.

I remembered hearing about umami in one of my psych classes. It's definitely it's own flavor. I just have a knee-jerk reaction when I hear a "you-gaijin-wouldn't-understand" claim about Japanese language/culture.

Ayayay! I hope your friend gets better!!

One more: "unsofort unsoweiter" is German for "and so on and so forth". but it sounds cooler and you can abbreviate it usf usw... Actually it's no different from et cetera :(

By: escabeche

escabeche — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:04:44 -0800

From Hebrew, "dafka" and "stam." I don't speak Hebrew and so I can't quite explain what these words mean. But when my Israeli friends use these words in their English, they make perfect sense and express things I would have found difficult to handle gracefully in English alone.

By: bingo

bingo — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:10:22 -0800

From Dutch: "lekker" meaning something that feels physically good...it can apply to food, fabric, sex, etc.

Also from Dutch: "gezellig" meaning something sort of like, but not exactly like, "cozy."

By: zerobyproxy

zerobyproxy — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:15:21 -0800

In "street Spanish" in Mexico, they use a term for a thing that fixes something in an unconventional way. It is used in the same way that a "jury rig" might be used. Here is one, overly simple definition. Chicanada.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:16:01 -0800

I've never been able to confirm this but a lover once told me that the Japanese believe that heartbreak is a physical malady, not just an emotion. She said the word for it was shinpan. Two years later she left me with ample evidence that the Japanese, even if only the Japanese populating her rich inner life, are right.

However, she was not Japanese and could have been talking out of her ass.

By: DoctorFedora

DoctorFedora — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:42:04 -0800

HEY GUYS I LIKE JAPANESE TOO
Actually, "genki" is another good one. It's a sort of all-encompassing "well-disposed"/"energetic"/"healthy"/"alert" and doesn't really have a direct equivalent in English (as so many words in that god-forsaken moon language tend to)

full disclosure: I have a degree in that god-forsaken moon language.

By: prefpara

prefpara — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:56:10 -0800

In Russian, "poltora" means one and a half. It shouldn't take four words to express this concept! "See you in poltora hours" sounds so much better than "see you in one and a half hours."

Ditto for the Russian word "poslezavtra" which means the day after tomorrow.

By: SageLeVoid

SageLeVoid — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:01:13 -0800

Again japanese : Shouganai : Nothing can be done about it.
It's the perfect answer to almost everything you have no control over but it also can be made into a shitty excuse.

By: ourobouros

ourobouros — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:06:23 -0800

The Spanish word nervio, which I discovered in this AskMe. "...The word could be defined as a feeling of such intense affection that one trembles or grits his teeth with restraint so as not to harm the object of his affection. I have heard others allude to the sensation in seemingly bizarre phrases such as, "It's so cute [that] I want to squeeze it to death."

By: peacheater

peacheater — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:21:13 -0800

From slang Tamil: chumma -- pronounced choo-MA -- it means, approximately, just for the heck of it. Example usage: Why are you wearing that silly hat? Oh, chumma.
It's an amazingly useful word.

By: peacheater

peacheater — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:27:55 -0800

From Hindi: chamcha -- pronounced CHUM-cha -- literally means spoon but has taken on the meaning of a boot-licker/sycophant/ardent follower.

By: mphuie

mphuie — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:30:23 -0800

strangeguitars said:

差不多 (cha4 bu duo1) is good because it means "approximately" but it is often used as an exclamation.

Not to be anal, but its cha1, not cha4

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:56:52 -0800

We definitely need a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun for referring to people. "Him/her", "He/she"... that is annoying.

By: elendil71

elendil71 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:02:11 -0800

In Nepali (and probably Hindi too, although it might look and sound a little different) there's a phrase "ke garne" (English derivation of course, I dont write in Devanagari) that sort of means an eye-rolling exasperated "What to do?!" when the situation is beyond your control. It also has some humerous undertones. I used it a few times trying to communicate and I always got a big sympathetic smile and a pat on the back. Nice expressive phrase.

By: mynameisluka

mynameisluka — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:03:14 -0800

+1 for "doch"...it's the equivalent of "yuh-huh", but an actual word!

By: fogster

fogster — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:05:18 -0800

I routinely use a few from Latin.

I think et cetera (or just etc.) has become part of our language. I make frequent use of its sister phrase, et alia, abbreviated et al., which refers to people, just because it saves me from writing out "and the others" or "and other people."

There's also Ibidem, often abbreviated Ibid. (or somewhat incorrectly, Id.), more than the average person.

I'd also recommend distinctions between various kinds of love: I love the Red Sox, my mother, and my girlfriend, but in very different ways. Context usually works, but there are times when the distinction should be made. However, implementing something like the Greek philadelphia to refer to brotherly love, s bound to confuse people, given that some place in Pennsylvania has decided to use the term. ;)

And seconding These Premises Are Alarmed's suggestion: not only "nieces and nephews," but "aunts and uncles."

By: JimN2TAW

JimN2TAW — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:07:44 -0800

By: freddymetz

freddymetz — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:14:56 -0800

egal = german for doesnt matter/unimportant..but you cant really translate it

By: Rumple

Rumple — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:15:35 -0800

Weltschmerz: the world weariness, pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference between physical reality and the ideal state.

By: stopgap

stopgap — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:18:47 -0800

There's also Ibidem, often abbreviated Ibid. (or somewhat incorrectly, Id.)

Id. is short for idem, not ibidem. It doesn't mean "the same place," just "the same."

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:20:34 -0800

Can anyone explain the material copied above ? What language, how written and/or pronounced and/or used in conversation?

That's probably Mandarin Chinese. The numbers represent which tone is used on each syllable. See here, under the link "The syllable 'ma' pronounced with the four main tones".

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:33:35 -0800

From Spanish we should take picante, which mean hot like a habañero pepper, not caliente like from the oven.

By: stopgap

stopgap — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:40:58 -0800

From Spanish we should take picante

We do already have piquant, which I think is the same word via French.

By: francesca too

francesca too — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:06:28 -0800

from italian allegro/allegra, used in music, to substitute for gay, which now has a more universally used additional meaning.

By: mphuie

mphuie — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:15:23 -0800

strangeguitars said:

差不多 (cha4 bu duo1) is good because it means "approximately" but it is often used as an exclamation.

Not to be anal, but its cha1, not cha4
posted by mphuie at 8:30 AM on February 18 [+] [!]

Can anyone explain the material copied above ? What language, how written and/or pronounced and/or used in conversation?

It's chinese, specifically Mandarin. cha4 bu duo1 (pinyin) is the romanized way to write Chinese. The number at the end represents the correct tone the word should be pronounced in.

* 1st tone: high, level pitch
* 2nd tone: rising intonation
* 3rd tone: dipping intonation
* 4th tone: falling intonation

By: needs more cowbell

needs more cowbell — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:33:20 -0800

escabeche: you might like this article about the word dafka

By: the luke parker fiasco

the luke parker fiasco — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:38:02 -0800

Since learning Romanian I've become a fan of alaltăieri, or "the day before yesterday". Much faster, and sounds nice (roughly, "al-altuh-yeri", with the last "i" more hinted at than actually spoken).

geram (n) malay - that urge you get to pinch a cute baby's cheeks, or the urge to tell off a coworker who deserves it. Basically an overwhelming urge that you have to struggle to suppress. It's a kind of basic emotion that we somehow don't have a word for.
posted by BinGregory at 6:04 AM on February 18
cac·o·ë·thes (n.): an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action [syn: mania]

(sorry, my pedantic streak got the better of me ... or, it was a cacoëthes ... )

By: spaceman_spiff

spaceman_spiff — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:42:29 -0800

Fahrvegnugen. It's generally recognized by Americans, though sadly less so in my generation than my parents', but it's certainly not considered "English", and it would be nice to use it more.

By: londongeezer

londongeezer — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:19:04 -0800

German: treppenwitz - that blinding retort or flash of inspiration you comes to you too late (the "witz" that comes to you when you are on your way out down the "treppen"); it's known, but not exactly a fully-fledged bit of everyday usage

Russian: mozhno (можно), meaning both "May I?" and, in response maybe, "You may."

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:51:58 -0800

German: treppenwitz - that blinding retort or flash of inspiration you comes to you too late

Funny, the French have a similar expression with a similar explanation--l'esprit de l'escalier (lit: stairway wit)--though they don't have the German convenience of smushing their words together.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:12:07 -0800

We do already have piquant, which I think is the same word via French.

No, piquant in English just means "spicy" or "flavorful" - I'm looking for a word that I could say as someone lifts a fork of food to their mouth that means "that's gonna hurt!"

By: atomly

atomly — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:39:26 -0800

I, personally, usually think of "doch" as something along the lines of "however."

Also, this thread has a lot of good ones.

By: streetdreams

streetdreams — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:47:23 -0800

Samoud, from Arabic, which means steadfastness, strength and endurance through hardship.

And I'm not at all sure that this is what you're looking for, but in Spain, they curse by saying "Me cago en Dios!" which means "I shit on God!," and there is not a curse word or phrase in the English language which is nearly as colorful, blasphemous and descriptive.

By: krautland

krautland — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:47:35 -0800

op, remember capitalisation matters in german: Schadenfreude and Gestalt.

the one word english should really steal from german? doch (sorta means 'however' or 'still'). simply because there is no english term to express just what this does to a sentence.

By: Wilder

Wilder — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:48:46 -0800

friolero and salero.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:19:40 -0800

Damn. I was gonna suggest hyggelig, but since two big jerks up there spied on my brain and posted ahead of me, here's another common Danish word:

jo (pronounced "yo"): means, as best as I can tell, an emphatic "not 'no', but 'yes'"

For example:

Hvil du ikke har middag? (Will you not have lunch?)

Jo! (Not "no", but "yes"!)

Note that either "yes" (ja) or "no" (nej) would have been an ambiguous answer to the question.

There. There is my Danish, such that it is.

Please stay out of my brain in the future. kthnx

By: springload

springload — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:07:56 -0800

From Swedish, I suggest you take Orka, which is to have the energy to do things. If you'd rather stay at home and watch TV, you say "Nah, jag orkar inte". It's like "can't be bothered" but more versatile and with no rudeness about it.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:15:16 -0800

Another way to explain the use of jo would be to say that it indicates that the person saying jo wants to give a positive response to a question that contains the word not. In English I think one would need to repeat the verb of the question in order to make sense. If the question is asked without the word not you would use ja.

Er du ikke glad? (Are you not happy?)
Jo! (Yes (I am)!)

The same conversation but this time without the not:

Er du glad? (Are you happy?)
Ja! (Yes!)

Actually, re-reading what I've just written I have no idea if it makes it any clearer.

By: divabat

divabat — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:28:53 -0800

BinGregory: Huh, I always though "geram" means "frustrated". Suppose that explains all the confusion about mothers being frustrated at squeezing baby cheeks.

Greg Nog: Malay has such a word - "dia". Third person gender neutral.

In Malay, there are different ways to define love.

Cinta = lovers, God, nature, country
Sayang = general affection
Kasih = to care for something, usually nature but people are also involved sometimes. Not as strong as "sayang"

"Pedas" is chilli hot, while "panas" is heat hot. I find this so much more useful than just "hot".

In Japanese, there are two words for no - I forgot which one means "no thanks, maybe later" while "dame" means "no, absolutely not". Very useful device to differentiate between "No thanks, I'm full" and "No, I cannot eat this". Japanese also had a bunch of very handy words (omoshiroii!!) but I can't remember them all now.

By: divabat

divabat — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:37:13 -0800

In Bengali, there are different words to describe your relationship to your aunts and uncles.

Mama - mother's brother
Mami - mother's brother's wife
Khalamuni - mother's sister
Khala/Khalu - mother's sister's husband
Chacha - father's brother
Chachi - father's brother's wife
Fupi - father's sister
Fupi - father's sister's husband

I think you would describe your mother's sister's husband's sister as Chachi, since the closest relative you have to her is through your uncle. I might be wrong though.

Your maternal grandparents are Nana and Nanu, and your paternal grandparents are Dada and Dadu.

By: tarvuz

tarvuz — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:30:40 -0800

I like the Uzbek way of adding "muh" onto the end of questions that don't have a who, what, when, where or why in the sentence.

example: Are you hungrymuh?

By: tarvuz

tarvuz — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:33:21 -0800

U is the Uzbek word that signifies "he, she or it"

prounounced as "oo"

By: Anything

Anything — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:07:59 -0800

Can the Finnish hän join the gender-neutral third person singular party? (The ä is pronounced just like the a in words such as tan, pan and fan.)

divabat, is the gender-neutral dia the only third person singular in Malay, or are there gender specific words for he/she as well? In Finnish there aren't.

By: procrastination

procrastination — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:10:01 -0800

Not a single word, but I have been lead to believe that in Georgian there is a verb conjugation that means "I don't want to , but I will if I have to". I could use that.

By: grubby

grubby — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:59:49 -0800

lạn - vietnamese for "100 grams" a very useful abbreviation for doing your metric markets.

"Do your market(s)" is itself a phrasing borrowed from French which I think is more accurate than "go to the market"

By: divabat

divabat — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:12:32 -0800

Anything: "dia"'s the only third person singular pronoun. You infer he/she from context.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:33:37 -0800

I have no specific recommended word, unSane, but I can recommend Howard Rheingold's book, They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases, which deals with your question pretty much throughout, and is fun to read and to browse.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:59:43 -0800

lạn - vietnamese for "100 grams" a very useful abbreviation for doing your metric markets.

There is an equivalent S.I. word, hectogram (hg), where "hecto-" refers to the Greek "hecato" (hundred), not "hecto" (sixth).

By: kjs4

kjs4 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:53:23 -0800

Seconding "egal". I translate it as irrelevant, but egal has that long "a" to really put the full weight of your complete indifference and disdain into.

Another of my favourites is "geniessen". It means to savour or consume with appreciation. Particularly useful when eating, drinking or just looking at a view.

I must say that I find the translation of "doch" as "on the contrary" odd. I learnt it by immersion, and only ever heard it used as an emphasis. (similar to "so" when used for emphasis) It was often used interchangeably with "ja" (yes), but was generally more disapproving. It's a cool word to be sure, though I'm not sure I need it.

By: sebas

sebas — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:58:55 -0800

The use of the word 'oder' at the end of a sentence in german is really usefull. For example:
'Gehen wir zum Bar, oder?' is perfect to indicate that you want to go to a bar, you agreed to go to the bar, however it shows a tiny hesitant if it is actually a good idea. It leaves a door wide open to say 'hey actualy, let's go to the movies instead'.

It's more common in swiss-german and if overused drives german people absolutely insane.

By: unSane

unSane — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:47:18 -0800

I'll chime in with a few semi-dialect words from Northern England which I use all the time, but which mean nothing to folk here in Canada, sadly:

Clarty: Muddy, with the kind of mud that sticks to your shoes. "It's clarty out in t' yard".

Mithering: Annoying, relentless complaining about minor grievances. "Stop yer mitherin'!". Familiar to anyone who listens the The Fall.

Chuntering: Similar to mithering, but not necessarily complaining. Still annoying. "He was chuntering on about something or other, but I tuned out".

Mardy: Describing a petulant, grumpy child whose arms are folded and whose bottom lip is stuck out. "She's a mardy bugger".

Here in Canada my family uses 'rangy' with a hard G to describe kids who are overtired.

By: unSane

unSane — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:49:29 -0800

Also, 'scrunter' to describe a grumpy old person, although I see the Urban Dictionary has it as a term for an ugly woman.

By: NekulturnY

NekulturnY — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:28:21 -0800

Random thoughts when reading this post.

To the people who said 'egal' (German): might I suggest 'whatever'? It has exactly the same meaning.

The Danish 'jo' extists in French as "si!" and in Dutch as "jawel"

Tu n'as pas faim? - Si.
Heb je geen honger? - Jawel.

I think in English, the meaning is conveyed by use of the word "sure".
Don't you want to eat first? - Sure.
Although I do agree that English usually needs an extra confirmation.

And about umami: it's supposed to be a fatty, salty, extremely satisfactory taste that's to be found in cured ham (or salamis), bread with olive oil, ripe cheeses like parmiggiano, tomato sauce that has cooked for a long time. In English, that's called: pizza.

My own two cents: I think a people as obsessed by apocalyptic doom, weapons of mass destruction and God as Americans could probably use the word Gotterdämmerung (twilight of the gods).

By: unSane

unSane — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:31:46 -0800

Umami is sometimes regarded as the 'fifth' taste, triggered by MSG (which cured meats and ripe cheeses are rich in).

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:51:51 -0800

Oh, yeah, divabat -- I forgot about the Danish words for grandparents. Rather than a generic "grandmother" or "grandfather", they have more specific words:

mormor = mother's mother
farmor = father's mother
morfar = mother's father
farfar = father's father

...where "mor" = mother, and "far" = father, so it's real simple and sensible.

I don't know if they do uncles as farbror & morbror, or aunts as farsoster & morsoster (forgive the spelling -- can't find the danish characters right off hand, plus, well, jeg er Americansk...), or cousins that way. Perhaps sveskemus can confirm.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:54:10 -0800

My own two cents: I think a people as obsessed by apocalyptic doom, weapons of mass destruction and God as Americans could probably use the word Gotterdämmerung (twilight of the gods).

Fie on your hypermultisyllabic Germanisms! We already use Ragnarok and Armageddon and they sound cooler.

By: atomly

atomly — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:15:22 -0800

I usually just see umami used as-is in English. For example, in this excellent Malcolm Gladwell article about ketchup.

And it sounds like "jo," "si," "jawel" and "doch" are all very similar and everybody agrees that English needs an equivalent.

Also, "egal" is kind of like saying "whatever" in English, but it has a less negative tone to it, in my experience. I love using it.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:25:55 -0800

geram (n) malay - that urge you get to pinch a cute baby's cheeks, or the urge to tell off a coworker who deserves it. Basically an overwhelming urge that you have to struggle to suppress. It's a kind of basic emotion that we somehow don't have a word for.

Well, we do have compulsion, which seems to fit that definition.

And didn't the German languange just very recently do away with the enormous complex words? In any case, they seem like cheating to me.

I was going to suggest the Swedish mormor, morfar, farmor, and farfar -- very useful -- but LordSludge beat me to it.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:54:37 -0800

I don't know if they do uncles as farbror & morbror, or aunts as farsoster & morsoster (forgive the spelling -- can't find the danish characters right off hand, plus, well, jeg er Americansk...), or cousins that way. Perhaps sveskemus can confirm.

Almost. We cut off part of søster like this:

Farbror = father's brother
Morbror = mother's brother
Faster = father's sister
Moster = mother's sister

By: stopgap

stopgap — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:16:49 -0800

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:47:01 -0800

From Korea: jeong. It's hard to describe, but this pdf does a decent job of it.

A similar question to this was asked in the past, and jeong was one of the six words (along with kibeun, han, chemyeon, neunchi, and bunuiki) I suggested that describe not only foundation concepts of Korean culture, but things that are difficult to explain succinctly (or at all) in English. Here.

By: Phire

Phire — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:39:38 -0800

Doch can mean 'however' when used in a sentence construction, yes, but I gather the usage that was being thought of is more along the lines of

1: Du kannst ja überhaupt nichts richtig machen
2: Doch!

There are better examples of the defiance but they escape me.

Along the same lines, I nominate "Na und?". Literally it means "Yeah, and?" but it's so much more biting and snarly.

I'm a nice person, really.

Also,
差不多 (cha1 bu duo1) means literally "not much off". A nice(r) way to say "Mm, passable, I suppose."

By: BinGregory

BinGregory — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:57:11 -0800

Divabat - That's probably the closest one-word equivalent, but I don't think it covers the full range of meaning. To me, being frustrated has this upset quality that geram doesn't always. Compulsion might be closer. "Fed up" or "can't stand it", depending on the situation. My daughter, who is 2 1/2, will sneak up on you when you're not looking and squeeze your elbow skin, the wrinkly part. Why? "Me geram!", she says. She just couldn't help herself.

I think the luke parker fiasco has it. cacoëthes : I guess I need to improve my mono-linguistic wordpower; that was greek to me.

Interestingly, the word geram comes from the Persian, meaning passion, at least according to my handy dictionary. My guess is it went from meaning "passionate" to "hot & bothered" to its current meaning. Just a guess though. IANALinguist

By: markovich

markovich — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:42:56 -0800

English is missing the "La" of Singapore and Shanghai. For example:

Exclamtion: Let's finally go!
Answer: Okay, la!

or

- I'll give you 10 Yuan
- Add a little bit, la!

The exact same construct can be found in many western african languages. "Da" is used in Ibibio as in the first example, but for the second example, should be prepended to the sentence, and indicates irritation, whereas the shanghainese version indicates supplication.

In ghanaian pidgen english, the second usage above is sometimes done with "abeg", from "I beg"

- Add a little bit, abeg!

By: onalark

onalark — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:53:36 -0800

From Hawaiian
pono - upright, moral, fair, just

There are a few others I use all the time, but pono carries a lot of strength for such a tiny word.