I wish English had a word for this!

äreo · Post by **äreo** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:32 pm

People should start to use Middle English pronouns again. They were ckool.

Klaivas · Post by **Klaivas** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 6:11 pm

äreo wrote:People should start to use Middle English pronouns again. They were ckool.

It still hasn't died out in some dialects, but I reckon it'll be gone within 30 years.

äreo · Post by **äreo** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:06 pm

Sadly yes.

linguoboy · Post by **linguoboy** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:52 pm

äreo wrote:Sadly yes.

If it makes thee sad, well, it's within thy power to do something about it, tha knows.

Salmoneus · Post by **Salmoneus** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:39 pm

And then there's 'jus' - a (in my experience) usually quite thick but light liquid accompaniment for meats, usually in smaller quantities than 'sauce' or 'gravy'. Often (well, sometimes) contains fruit.

Ázorak · Post by **Ázorak** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:48 pm

Hey, does anyone want to hear one that I have in my conlang Ázorak?

Edit - Because I know this thread was intended for natlangs, but one feature I want in Ázorak is to express things that English doesn't do very well in single words. And if there is another thread like this for conlangs, please tell me

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:33 am

My problem with English is exactly the opposite: it has too many different words, where colloquial Bengali has only one. For example: /k_ha/ - eat, drink, inhale, smoke; /p_hota/ - to explode, to rupture, to puncture; etc.

ratammer · Post by **ratammer** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:46 am

Remember French people have a choice in that area - the all-encompassing "prendre", or "manger", "boire", "fumer", etc.

din · Post by **din** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:27 pm

What I miss in English is a good way of countering a statement with the opposite, in one word.

"John is stupid"
"it.is.not.so!"

"He didn't go to the class"
"yes.he.did!"

French has "Si!" and German has "Doch!" for the 2nd. Dutch has "Wel!" and "Niet" can be used for the first example (usually in combination with "waar", true.)

"It is so" just doesn't have the flexibility.

Risla · Post by **Risla** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:30 pm

Well, we do have 'uh-uh', which I don't know if it can be considered a word or not, but it exists.

din · Post by **din** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:25 am

Eccentric Iconoclast wrote:Well, we do have 'uh-uh', which I don't know if it can be considered a word or not, but it exists.

But you can't say "He uh-uh did that!"

You can use emphasis on the verb 'to do', and negate it for the opposite, but it still isn't quite as good

Risla · Post by **Risla** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:08 am

But you can say "Uh-huh, he did that!"

...but I do agree that English is lacking a good word for that purpose.

zlatiborica · Post by **zlatiborica** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:54 am

You spell it like that? I’ve always spelled it "aha", like in Serbian.

Terra · Post by **Terra** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:46 pm

To be fair, <aha> and <uh> confer different sounds to me, and thus not being interchangeable.

<aha> = [@"ha] An exclamation of excitement.
<uh-huh> = [@~"h@] Equivalent to "Is that so?".
<uh-uh> = ["@?@?] "No".

Wycoval · Post by **Wycoval** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:50 pm

For me: <uh-uh> = ["@~?@~?] "No".

Aurora Rossa · Post by **Aurora Rossa** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:12 pm

rotting ham wrote:My problem with English is exactly the opposite: it has too many different words, where colloquial Bengali has only one. For example: /k_ha/ - eat, drink, inhale, smoke; /p_hota/ - to explode, to rupture, to puncture; etc.

Yeah, I agree and tend to do my conlanging that way myself.

One word that English could use is a term that refers to the loss of motivation you feel when you work hard on something and then some accident destroys it all.

Wycoval · Post by **Wycoval** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:25 pm

Eddy wrote:One word that English could use is a term that refers to the loss of motivation you feel when you work hard on something and then some accident destroys it all.

"Bummed"

Niedokonany · Post by **Niedokonany** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:16 am

Maybe it isn't that English really "lacks" it, but I think it's odd that the same verbs: "to spill" and "to pour" are used in the meaning "to pour/spill sand" and "to pour/spill water". For instance, Polish has entirely separate verbs for pouring/spilling powdery substances and for pouring/spilling liquids, and so does German AFAIK.

linguoboy · Post by **linguoboy** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:42 am

Piotr wrote:Maybe it isn't that English really "lacks" it, but I think it's odd that the same verbs: "to spill" and "to pour" are used in the meaning "to pour/spill sand" and "to pour/spill water". For instance, Polish has entirely separate verbs for pouring/spilling powdery substances and for pouring/spilling liquids, and so does German AFAIK.

I don't think German does. I assume you're referring to (ver)gießen and (ver)schütten, but whereas you cannot (AFAIK, not being a native speaker) vergießen sand, you can verschütten water and other liquids.

English does make this distinction with other related terms, however. So whereas either water or sand can be sprinkled, only sand can be strewn and only water can be splashed.

Sesostris · Post by **Sesostris** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:30 pm

I, as a native speaker of (Southern) German, woldn't use "vergießen" with anything else than blood ("Blut vergießen").

Sand probably would be "ausschütten" (spill) or "aufschütten" (heap up), and I would "verschütten" (spill) or "aus-/eingießen" (pour) water. If I have a glass of any liquid I don't want to drink, maybe because it's been left standing around for some days, it falls victim to "wegschütten" or "weggießen" (pour away). Or I would simply use the catch-all term, "weghauen"

schwhatever · Post by **schwhatever** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:47 pm

linguoboy wrote:English does make this distinction with other related terms, however. So whereas either water or sand can be sprinkled, only sand can be strewn and only water can be splashed.

I have said that I splashed sand and rarely (if ever) use the term strewn.

makvas · Post by **makvas** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:53 pm

schwhatever wrote:
linguoboy wrote:English does make this distinction with other related terms, however. So whereas either water or sand can be sprinkled, only sand can be strewn and only water can be splashed.
I have said that I splashed sand and rarely (if ever) use the term strewn.

I myself would probably use neither; I think I'd say I "sprayed" the sand. Splashing only really applies to liquids, for me.

Niedokonany · Post by **Niedokonany** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:15 am

I've looked through a few dictionaries and it seems that Greek (χύνω) as well as some Romance languages (it. versare fr. répandre) use or can use the same verb in both meanings, so that weird behavior is more common than I thought. It's definitely not what the Lord intended

Risla · Post by **Risla** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:19 pm

I only ever use the word "strewn" when I'm trying to sound dramatic. It's usually accompanied by the word "lair".

Splash and spray both only apply to liquids to me, and sprinkle implies deliberately dropping something.

Soap · Post by **Soap** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:43 pm

I wish English had a word for the emotion you feel when someone is talking to you as if youve made a ridiculously infantile mistake (and you havent), or when theyve just shown you that you ARE stupid and keep talking to you like everything's normal, perhaps because they assume you're used to being made to feel stupid, or for any situation in general when you feel the urge to roll your eyes at someone or say "I'm not THAT dumb!" Sarcasm doesnt really mean the same thing. For the first two examples, Ive just used "...." for this emotion. Here's the first example:

Visitor: Hi, which door should I use to get into the sign-up room?
Bystander: Ummm ... probably the one that says Entrance! (but there are two doors that say that and the Visitor knows that only one of them opens)
Visitor: ....

Here's another example:
Girl: Pass me the yellow roll of tape please.
Boy: This one?
Girl: Yeah.
Boy: Are you sure? That's *double sided* tape!
Girl: ....

Here's another example. This one sounds a bit forced because I have to provide the context for it to make sense in such a short space:

Courtney brought me to the digital camera show table. "I tied them to the shelf with security cables, just like the boss told me to! Now we can get on with the show and not worry about customers stealing the cameras!" I knew, of course, that the boss had told her to put them out loose, not tie them up. And she had done a horrible job fastening them, anyway. I decided to just play dumb. "I thought the boss said something else, hold on, I'll be right back." I came back a minute later and said to her "No, really, the boss said it's OK, we can put them out loose, right on the table!" And so I ripped the cameras free from her security cables one by one and handed them to her. She looked at me _______ically.