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Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 6:46 am
by Herr Dunkel
Helios wrote: Sorry for acting like a douche in another thread.
Don´t whine in the museum.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 11:42 am
by Zontas
Elector Dark wrote:
Helios wrote: Sorry for acting like a douche in another thread.
Don´t whine in the museum.
Because apologizing and whining mean the exact same thing.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 1:55 pm
by Herr Dunkel
Helios wrote:
Elector Dark wrote:
Helios wrote: Sorry for acting like a douche in another thread.
Don´t whine in the museum.
Because apologizing ad whining mean the exact same thing.
In the museum, yes.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 7:37 pm
by Zontas
Elector Dark wrote:
Helios wrote:
Elector Dark wrote:
Helios wrote: Sorry for acting like a douche in another thread.
Don´t whine in the museum.
Because apologizing ad whining mean the exact same thing.
In the museum, yes.
As if.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 3:16 pm
by Herr Dunkel
Just stop arguing - you can't outargue me. I won't respond to anything more you say here that isn't constructive.

What I'd want in English: gogglot, but for a human being.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 6:56 am
by clawgrip
I wish there were a clear and concise word in English for the Japanese 貧乏揺すり binbōyusuri: unconscious tapping or shaking, especially with your foot (and especially while sitting). We all know this and almost all of us do it, but there's no simple term for it.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2012 12:49 am
by Melteor
I would call that fidgeting, from being uncomfortable or restless. As a phenomenon, I've heard it called a "nervous or unconscious tic". It might also be called a "stim".

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 2:29 am
by Ser
clawgrip wrote:I wish there were a clear and concise word in English for the Japanese 貧乏揺すり binbōyusuri: unconscious tapping or shaking, especially with your foot (and especially while sitting). We all know this and almost all of us do it, but there's no simple term for it.
I've heard it referred to as "wobbling your foot". You could try nominalizing it to "foot wobbling", though that's not a term people use at all. I can't even find examples of it using Google! (Instances of "foot wobbling" use "wobbling" as a present participle, or have punctuation in the middle.)

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:11 pm
by linguoboy
Serafín wrote:I've heard it referred to as "wobbling your foot".
Ironically, that's what I was doing as I read this.

Since you mentioned it in another thread: vergüenza ajena. There's an equivalent in German (Fremdscham), but I don't know of one in English. ("Spanish shame" is completely foreign to me.)

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:08 pm
by Jipí
FWIW, I've never seen Fremdscham. It's always the verb, sich fremdschämen 'feel ashamed for someone else'.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:49 pm
by ol bofosh
treegod wrote:I've thought, I like the Spanish word ajeno, and I think there should be an equivalent word in English (examples I see I can only translate into clunky phrase: someone else's/of someone else).

I propose otherish and/or othery.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 3:22 pm
by ratammer
I've just found out about the Latin word sopio: a caricature of a man with a large penis, like in graffiti. It's something we see in everyday life but have no name for!

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 8:04 am
by Trailsend
"to obligate sbdy to accomodate you"

"I don't typically eat meat, but I didn't say anything at that point because I didn't want to _______ him."

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 8:46 am
by Rui
burden?

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:04 am
by linguoboy
Trailsend wrote:"to obligate sbdy to accomodate you"

"I don't typically eat meat, but I didn't say anything at that point because I didn't want to _______ him."
"impose on", "presume upon"

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 5:19 pm
by Nesescosac
Perhaps this is in the wrong thread, but flipping through a Tangut dictionary, I found that it has a single word for "excrement of insects".

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:55 am
by linguoboy
Aeetlrcreejl wrote:Perhaps this is in the wrong thread, but flipping through a Tangut dictionary, I found that it has a single word for "excrement of insects".
Cf. "flyspeck"

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:59 am
by Radius Solis
The Tohono O'odham have such a single word as well.

I know this because they, in a moment of poetic semantic drift, applied it to punctuation. Commas, quote marks, periods, and so forth are, collectively, "fly shit". This is in the O'odham dictionary, at any rate.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 4:11 pm
by Nesescosac
Tonkawa has a word for "to kill someone by an ejection of fetid fluid".

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:10 pm
by abaddamn
lolwhut

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 12:00 am
by Drydic
Shitcannon artillery was commonly used in pre-colonial times in North America.

Re:

Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:37 pm
by Valkura
linguoboy wrote:Just yesterday, I found another great German word to add to my collection of amusing "untranslatables": Morgenmuffel "person who is grumpy in the mornings". (Best translation IMD would probably be "not a morning person".) It turns out that -muffel is semiproductive for "person who is grumpy at the prospect of something", e.g. Krawattenmuffel "person who doesn't like to wear neckties", Partymuffel "party pooper".
How often do people use that word?, because it's fucking awesome. Seriously, can we make that an English word? It's so fun so say (at least the Englishicized version i'm saying in my head is) and it has a useful meaning.

"Stop being such a morgenmuffle." Great.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 6:30 pm
by Drydic
At least Anglicize it entirely? Morningmuffle?

Unfortunately since we already have muffle it is unlikely to work out well...

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 1:05 am
by Valkura
Drydic Guy wrote:At least Anglicize it entirely? Morningmuffle?
That lessens it.
Unfortunately since we already have muffle it is unlikely to work out well...
'Muffle''s not a very common word, and English's no stranger to homonyms — and this one is even part a compound.

Re: I wish English had a word for this!

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:28 pm
by Melend
'Chiaroscuro' is one which I wish English had coined first. We've pretty much borrowed it straight from the Italian.