I wish English had a word for this!

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Tengado
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Post by Tengado »

MustangDan15 wrote:Well, it's just been added to mine... 8) Usually I'd just say "It's not worth my money" or something similar.
Hmm...close but not the quite the same. "it isn't worth it" is more of an absolute judgement on the quality of the product compared to it's price. "thoil" is more about whetehr you can justify it to yourself or live with yourself for spending the money on it [live with yourself sounds a bit extreme but you know what I mean]. We all spend money on things that aren't really worth it sometimes. Whre do you draw the line at how much you will spend for soemthing that's overpriced or not really that useful? That's thoil.
- "But this can be stopped."
- "No, I came all this way to show you this because nothing can be done. Because I like the way your pupils dilate in the presence of total planetary Armageddon.
Yes, it can be stopped."

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Post by con quesa »

Tengado wrote:I like the word "clusterfuck". But in my experience it means something more like a sitution that has just gone seriously wrong, perhaps in multiple ways, but usually quite rapidly.
Clusterfuck is one of my favorite English words as well.
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Post by Boşkoventi »

Tengado wrote:
MustangDan15 wrote:Well, it's just been added to mine... 8) Usually I'd just say "It's not worth my money" or something similar.
Hmm...close but not the quite the same. "it isn't worth it" is more of an absolute judgement on the quality of the product compared to it's price.
I'm not so sure. People often take such statements to be absolute, but I'd say that people really mean "... to me" - whether they realize it or not. (And they'll often insist that their opinion IS absolute fact). If I'm thinking about buying something, but say "Nah, it's not worth it", that really means "It's not worth it to me", or "I'm not willing to pay that much". This may or may not have to do with the quality of the product.

Nifty word, though.

EDIT:
con quesa wrote:Clusterfuck is one of my favorite English words as well.
Oddly enough, I've never heard it. But I do like it. :D
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Post by McNugget »

I can't think of a single English phrase which quite captures the essence of the Greek expression "Einai edaksi".

When my mind says "Einai edaksi", my mouth says "Whatever", "maybe later", "It's not worth my time", "Big fucking deal", "Fuck it", or "Fuck you".

DISCLAIMER: as a third-generation Greek-Canadian, my grasp of Greek might be somewhat distorted. I can count on both hands the number of people I have had serious conversations with in Greek in my lifetime. Still, it seems to colour the way I look at the world.

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Post by Tengado »

Boskobènet wrote:
Tengado wrote:
MustangDan15 wrote:Well, it's just been added to mine... 8) Usually I'd just say "It's not worth my money" or something similar.
Hmm...close but not the quite the same. "it isn't worth it" is more of an absolute judgement on the quality of the product compared to it's price.
I'm not so sure. People often take such statements to be absolute, but I'd say that people really mean "... to me" - whether they realize it or not. (And they'll often insist that their opinion IS absolute fact). If I'm thinking about buying something, but say "Nah, it's not worth it", that really means "It's not worth it to me", or "I'm not willing to pay that much". This may or may not have to do with the quality of the product.
True, but "thoil" carries none of the absoluteness that "worth" could have. You're saying "I personally cannot stomach handing over the money for it". Maybe it is worth the money, but it's something that you don't feel you need or can justify buying. There's an espresso machine in a departmant store whch is worth the money but it's too much for me - I can't thoil it.
- "But this can be stopped."
- "No, I came all this way to show you this because nothing can be done. Because I like the way your pupils dilate in the presence of total planetary Armageddon.
Yes, it can be stopped."

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Post by droptail »

So, the focus of "thoil" is not on the worth of the purchased item but on my feeling after purchasing the item or my need for that item? So its meaning is more like "I can't justify the purchase of it for myself"?

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Post by Travis B. »

Maknas wrote:
Whimemsz wrote:I don't know how often people around me say you guys'--I agree it sounds kind of cumbersome. Personally, I usually say your guys (or sometimes your guys').
Hey, I use you guys'!

If you ask me, your guys sounds just flat out wrong. It's unacceptable.
At least here, just your is used as the possessive determiner for you guys, with no number distinction being present for possessive determiners in the second person. The only other form for a second person plural possessive determiner that I myself have heard is you guys's /"ju "gaIzIz/, which sounds rather off to me subjectively.
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Post by Euskaldun »

Ghenris wrote:English is very poor in pronouns.
"I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they"... There should be a plural "you". There should also be a maculine/feminine/neutral plural third person.

Only the english speaking people is responsible for that situation! :mrgreen: You was a plural, and the singular was thou like du in german or tu in french

Something I consider unnecessary in english is the "Present Perfect". I mean, wha' is that about? The other languages don't use it and I think it is too confuse.

And there is the portuguese word "saudade". Only we, from portugal, use it. I don't know to explain what it means in english, but wikipedia does:

Saudade (pron. IPA [sɐu'ðað(ɨ)] in European Portuguese and Galician, and [sau'dadʒi] or [sau'daði] in Brazilian Portuguese) is a Portuguese word for a feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.

And:

Saudade is generally considered one of the hardest words to translate. It originated from the Latin word solitatem (loneliness, solitude), but developed a different meaning. Loneliness in Portuguese is solidão (a semi-learned word), from Latin solitudo. Few other languages in the world have a word with such meaning, making saudade a distinct mark of Portuguese culture.

In his book In Portugal of 1912, A.F.G Bell writes: "The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness."

Saudade is different from nostalgia (the English word, that is). In nostalgia, one has a mixed happy and sad feeling, a memory of happiness but a sadness for its impossible return and sole existence in the past. Saudade is like nostalgia but with the hope that what is being longed for might return, even if that return is unlikely or so distant in the future to be almost of no consequence to the present. One might make a strong analogy with nostalgia as a feeling one has for a loved one who has died and saudade as a feeling one has for a loved one who has disappeared or is simply currently absent. Nostalgia is located in the past and is somewhat conformist while saudade is very present, anguishing, anxious and extends into the future. In Portuguese, the same word nostalgia has quite a different meaning.

For instance, the phrase "Sinto saudade de você" ("I feel 'saudade' for you") directly translates into "I miss you". "Eu sinto a tua falta" also has the same meaning in English ("falta" and "saudade" both are translated for missing), but it is different in Portuguese. The first sentence is never told to anyone personally, but the second can be. The first sentence would be said by a person whose lover has been abroad for sometime, it would be said over the phone or written in a letter. The second sentence would be said by someone who has divorced, or whose partner is not usually at home, and would be said personally.

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Post by Tengado »

MustangDan15 wrote:So, the focus of "thoil" is not on the worth of the purchased item but on my feeling after purchasing the item or my need for that item? So its meaning is more like "I can't justify the purchase of it for myself"?
Yes - exactly. It's whetehr you could justify it to yourself and not feel too guilty about having spent the money. Whetehr you can stomach handing over the money.

And they wonder why Yorkshire people are considered tight.

Euskaldun - was there a reason for quoting that ginormous block of text and not saying anything?
- "But this can be stopped."
- "No, I came all this way to show you this because nothing can be done. Because I like the way your pupils dilate in the presence of total planetary Armageddon.
Yes, it can be stopped."

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Post by Wycoval »

When visiting other parts of the world, you can often encounter things that are quite common there for which you have no good English word. Here are some examples of terms that we used amongst ourselves when I was a Peace Corps volunteer. When speaking in English it was not uncommon to change the pronunciation to more closely resemble English.

the gare (Fr. gare routière) /gAr\/ - a centralized parking lot for cross-country taxis awaiting fares.
to deplace a taxi (Fr. (se) deplacer) /deIplAs/ - to buy up all the seats in a taxi so as not to have to wait until all the seats were filled with passengers before you could leave.
to cotizate (Fr. faire une cotisation) /kotIzeIt/ - chip in to share an expense to deplace a taxi or buy a meal.
a pot (Fr.) /poU/ - a plastic cup (or more rarely a bamboo joint) of about one pint volume. The common single unit when purchasing palm wine.
a bidon (Fr.) /bidoUn/ - a large plastic jug. The common bulk unit when purchasing palm wine.
a regime (Fr. régime) /r\eIZim/ - a whole stalk of bananas, as opposed to a small bunch.

coupe-coupe (W. African French patois) /kup kup/ - a cutlass or machete.
daba (W. African French patois) /dAb@/ - a hand plow or short-handled hoe.
pagne (W. African French patois) /pAnj@/ - a single 1x1m square piece of cloth used mainly as a skirt, but with a thousand other uses as well.

maffe tiga (Pulaar) /mAfeI tig@/ - rice with peanut sauce
maffe hakko (Pulaar) /mAfeI hAkoU/ - rice with cassava leaf sauce
(maffe) hakko pute (Pulaar) /hAkoU pu:teI/ - rice with sweet potato leaf sauce

There were probably a lot more, but that's all I can remember right now. I'll have to dig out my old newsletters to see what others I missed.
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Post by Shinali Sishi »

I'm a fan of Spanish choque...which kinda means a crash or a shock or a clash but it's more than that.
It was a choque to me when I had my first car choque. :o

http://www.spanishdict.com/AS.cfm?e=choque
this seems to think it can be literal only, but the figurative uses are what I like.
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Post by Diogenes »

"eigentlich". I surely miss "eigentlich". LEO has lots of translations, which means that none of them actually hits the mark.

By the way: "eigen" has entered English scientific language: Eigenvector, eigenvalue, eigen angular frequency, for example. Try this on LEO.
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Post by Jipí »

Diogenes wrote:"eigentlich". I surely miss "eigentlich". LEO has lots of translations, which means that none of them actually hits the mark.
Most definitely, and all the other Abtönungspartikel, such as "halt" and "ja" etc. as well. I also miss "doch".

BTW, eigentlich literally translates as 'ownly'

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Post by Diogenes »

Yeah, "doch" is first place ex aequo with "eigentlich" :)
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Post by TomHChappell »

Diogenes wrote: By the way: "eigen" has entered English scientific language: Eigenvector, eigenvalue, eigen angular frequency, for example. Try this on LEO.
"Eigen" becomes "proper" in British and "characteristic" in American.
"Eigenvalue" = "proper value" or "characteristic value", for instance.
But more and more, particularly in American, it is being left as "eigen".

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Post by PyroKinetic »

it can't possibly be harder for you to master than it is for Americans to learn the use of the subjunctive in Romance languages.
But... we use the subjunctive all the time...

"If I were to go down there tomorrow..."
"Thanks be to God..."
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Post by Nuntar »

Yes, but you don't use the subjunctive as it's used in Romance languages. 8)
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Post by ¡Papapishu! »

PyroKinetic wrote:
it can't possibly be harder for you to master than it is for Americans to learn the use of the subjunctive in Romance languages.
But... we use the subjunctive all the time...

"If I were to go down there tomorrow..."
"Thanks be to God..."
You use constructions like that "all the time"? I know I don't.

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Post by Wycoval »

¡Papapishu! wrote:
PyroKinetic wrote:
it can't possibly be harder for you to master than it is for Americans to learn the use of the subjunctive in Romance languages.
But... we use the subjunctive all the time...

"If I were to go down there tomorrow..."
"Thanks be to God..."
You use constructions like that "all the time"? I know I don't.
I use the "If I/you/they were [inf]" construction quite frequently.
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Post by Whimemsz »

¡Papapishu! wrote:
PyroKinetic wrote:
it can't possibly be harder for you to master than it is for Americans to learn the use of the subjunctive in Romance languages.
But... we use the subjunctive all the time...

"If I were to go down there tomorrow..."
"Thanks be to God..."
You use constructions like that "all the time"? I know I don't.
Yes, my impression is that it's becoming rarer and even dissapearing in a number of dialects (I know it's pretty rare in mine).

EDIT: Not all of them, of course!
Last edited by Whimemsz on Wed Nov 15, 2006 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Nuntarin »

Wycoval wrote:I use the "If I/you/they were [inf]" construction quite frequently.
So do I, and I'm not even American.
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Post by Travis B. »

Whimemsz wrote:
¡Papapishu! wrote:
PyroKinetic wrote:
it can't possibly be harder for you to master than it is for Americans to learn the use of the subjunctive in Romance languages.
But... we use the subjunctive all the time...

"If I were to go down there tomorrow..."
"Thanks be to God..."
You use constructions like that "all the time"? I know I don't.
Yes, my impression is that it's becoming rarer and even dissapearing in a number of dialects (I know it's pretty rare in mine).

EDIT: Not all of them, of course!
The important thing to note, though, is that such varies very heavily by dialect group. In some dialect groups such is practically absent in informal speech and rare in even formal speech, such as in many English English dialects, whereas in some dialect groups, in particular most North American English dialects, such is used productively without much limitation throughout all registers, even informal speech.
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Post by Carrot »

My addition, even though it has some equivalents (I think) in English:

Swedish att fula sig, lit. "to ugly (verb) oneself". Perhaps a more understandable translation would be "to behave in an ugly manner". What it means is that you are making some kind of joke (a mean joke that is) and/or doing some kind of imitation. Or it could mean that you're behaving weirdly. An example:

Persons A and B are laughing and imitating, say, mentally disabled people, which they find terribly amusing. Person C comes over and does not get what they're doing.

C: "Vad gör ni?"
"What are you doing?"

A: "Äh, vi bara fulade oss lite."
"Eh, we just uglied ourselves a bit."

... God that looks weird when translated literaly (sp?) :P I guess you could translate it as "fooling around", but fula sig definatly has an undertone of mean humour.
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Post by linguoboy »

Xephyr wrote:Just a note: I'm far from representative, but I don't think I've ever actually heard anybody say "y'all" in my experience of American English.
Try turning on the radio.

HTH, HAND.

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Post by linguoboy »

Tengado wrote:
MustangDan15 wrote:So, the focus of "thoil" is not on the worth of the purchased item but on my feeling after purchasing the item or my need for that item? So its meaning is more like "I can't justify the purchase of it for myself"?
Yes - exactly. It's whetehr you could justify it to yourself and not feel too guilty about having spent the money. Whetehr you can stomach handing over the money.
So what's wrong with "justify"? That's what works IMD.

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