Thursday, March 19, 2020

24 Words Worth Borrowing From Other Languages

24 Words Worth Borrowing From Other Languages A few decades ago, Harold Rheingold set out to find words and phrases that, he says, may help us notice the cracks between our own worldview and those of others. According to Rheingold, Finding a name for something is a way of conjuring its existence. Its a way of making it possible for people to see a pattern where they didnt see anything before. He illustrates this thesis (a version of the controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) in his book They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases (reprinted in 2000 by Sarabande Books). Drawing on more than 40 languages, Rheingold examined 150 interesting untranslatable words to borrow in order to help us notice the cracks between our own worldview and those of others. Here are 24 of Rheingolds imported words. Several of them (linked to entries in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary) have already begun migrating into English. Though its unlikely that all these words will add a new dimension to our lives, at least one or two should provoke a smile of recognition. attaccabottoni (Italian noun): a sad person who buttonholes people and tells long, pointless stories of misfortune (literally, a person who attacks your buttons).berrieh (Yiddish noun): an extraordinarily energetic and talented woman.cavoli riscaldati (Italian noun): an attempt to revive an old relationship (literally, reheated cabbage).Ã ©pater le bourgeois (French verb phrase): to deliberately shock people who have conventional values.farpotshket (Yiddish adjective): slang for something that is all fouled up, especially as the result of an attempt to fix it.fisselig (German adjective): flustered to the point of incompetence as a result of another persons supervision or nagging.fucha (Polish verb): to use company time and resources for your own end.haragei (Japanese noun): visceral, indirect, largely nonverbal communication (literally, belly performance).insaf (Indonesian adjective): socially and politically conscious.lagniappe (Louisiana French noun, from American Spanish): an ext ra or unexpected gift or benefit. lao (Chinese adjective): a respectful term of address for an older person.maya (Sanskrit noun): the mistaken belief that a symbol is the same as the reality it represents.mbuki-mvuki (Bantu verb): to shuck off clothes in order to dance.mokita (Kivila language of Papua New Guinea, noun): the truths of certain social situations that everybody knows but nobody talks about.ostranenie (Russian verb): make an audience see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar.potlatch (Haida noun): the ceremonial act of gaining social respect by giving away wealth.sabsung (Thai verb): to slake an emotional or spiritual thirst; to be revitalized.schadenfreude (German noun): the pleasure that one feels as a result of someone elses misfortune.shibui (Japanese adjective): simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty.talanoa (Hindi noun): idle talk as a social adhesive. (See phatic communication.)tirare la carretta (Italian verb): to slog through dull and tedious everyday chores (literally, to pull the little cart). tsuris (Yiddish noun): grief and trouble, especially the kind that only a son or daughter can give.uff da (Norwegian exclamation): expression of sympathy, annoyance, or mild disappointment.weltschmerz (German noun): a gloomy, romanticized, world-weary sadness (literally world-grief).

Monday, March 2, 2020

Defective Verbs in Spanish

Defective Verbs in Spanish The term defective verb (verbo defectivo) is applied to at least three types of verbs in Spanish: 1. Verbs that logically are conjugated in the third person only. These verbs, sometimes known as impersonal verbs, are the verbs of weather and natural phenomena, such as amanecer (to dawn), anochecer (to get dark), helar (to freeze), granizar (to hail), llover (to rain), nevar (to snow), relampaguear (to flash lightning) and tronar (to thunder). Occasionally, you may see or hear these verbs used in a personal or figurative sense in other than the third person, although such usage is quite rare. If one were, for example, anthropomorphizing Mother Nature and she were speaking in the first person, it would be more common to use an expression such as hago nieve (literally, I make snow) rather than coining a first-person construction of nevar. 2. Verbs where certain forms of conjugation dont exist. Spanish has a handful of verbs that some authorities indicate dont exist in all conjugations, although there is no apparent logical reason why they wouldnt. The most common of these is abolir (to abolish), which some grammar guides and dictionaries say is conjugated only in forms where the suffix begins with -i. (The illegitimate forms include most present-tense conjugations and some commands.) Thus, for example, according to these authorities, abolimos (we abolish) is a legitimate conjugation, but abolo (I abolish) is not. These days, however, the full conjugation of abolir is recognized by the Royal Spanish Academy, so theres no real need to avoid using any particular conjugated form. Three other verbs that supposedly arent conjugated without endings beginning with -i are agredir (to attack), balbucir (to babble), and blandir (to brandish). Additionally, a handful of uncommon verbs are used rarely, if at all, in forms other than the infinitive and past participle; these include aterirse (to be freezing stiff), despavorir (to be terrified), desolar (to destroy) and empedernir (to petrify). Finally, soler (a verb that has no direct equivalent in English but is roughly translated as to be usually) is not conjugated in the conditional, future and (according to some authorities) preterite tenses. 3. Verbs such as gustar that frequently are used in the third person followed by the verbs subject and preceded by an object. Gustar is used in sentences such as me gustan las manzanas for I like apples; typically the word that is the subject in the English translation becomes the indirect object of the Spanish verb. Other verbs that are usually used in the same way include doler (to cause pain), encantar (to enchant), faltar (to be insufficient), importar (to matter), parecer (to seem), quedar (to remain) and sorprender (to surprise). These verbs arent true defective verbs, because they exist in all conjugations, even though they are most common in the third person. The way they are used also doesnt seem to be particularly unusual to native Spanish speakers; they tend initially to be confusing to English speakers learning Spanish because of the way they are translated.