Amusing language barriers and your favorite words

[AnGeL.SLayer]

I was recently talking with a Buddie of mine who's from Sweden and I often find myself having to define words for him. It's usually the oddest things I have to describe, for example; pretzel sticks. lol It still cracks me up to think about me trying to explain it for him. hehe What does one really say without feeling foolish? After doing this for the span of our friendship I've come across a few words that have worked their way into my heart. For instance:

Pounce: to make a sudden assault or approach.

Gnaws: to bite or chew on with the teeth.

Poking: to make a prodding, jabbing, or thrusting movement especially repeatedly.


Those are just a few. Now when defined it doesn't seem too difficult to understand. The problem arises when explaining how people in the U.S. tend to use it. Like to playfully poke isn't the same as what we could consider a 'prodding' per-say. The language barrier often has him and I going in circles whenever we debate something. So I was wondering since we are such a mixed community how many of you had had an instance where you had to explain something that seemed oddly funny at the time.

Also since I've given a few of my favorite words I was wondering what everyone else's favorite words happen to be. Be so kind as to post it with a definition, why you like it and in what context you like to use it in most. =D


^_^

 

[irishdelinquent]

lol personally I love it when people elaborate upon simple things. I tend to notice that Americans do this a lot. For example, I've heard many Americans use the phrase "Ice Hockey" or "Tuna Fish". This makes me giggle. I know that tuna is a fish, so why say it? Why do you need to through the "ice" on there? I can gather that it tends to be on ice, being a canuck and all

 

[Saskwach]

lol personally I love it when people elaborate upon simple things. I tend to notice that Americans do this a lot. For example, I've heard many Americans use the phrase "Ice Hockey" or "Tuna Fish". This makes me giggle. I know that tuna is a fish, so why say it? Why do you need to through the "ice" on there? I can gather that it tends to be on ice, being a canuck and all

Ice is thrown on because there is a non-ice bound variant of ice hockey (or rather, ice hockey is a variant of hockey). Sure, when an american says hockey you can be pretty sure he means the ice sliding one but it doesn't hurt to be sure. I agree with you on tuna fish.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

lol personally I love it when people elaborate upon simple things. I tend to notice that Americans do this a lot. For example, I've heard many Americans use the phrase "Ice Hockey" or "Tuna Fish". This makes me giggle. I know that tuna is a fish, so why say it? Why do you need to through the "ice" on there? I can gather that it tends to be on ice, being a canuck and all

Field hockey?

I like the redundant ones like "PIN number" and "ATM machine."

I had to double-check "nonplussed" while writing today. Where the hell did that word come from, anyway? Can one be "plussed?"

 

[Saskwach]

I' hellp you out there mscherbatskaya but apparently my favourite etymology dictionary, etymonline.com is down.
Edit: Thankfully, wikipedia hasn't failed me.
'Nonplussed is derived from the Latin phrase "non plus" meaning "no more, no further". Recently in North American English nonplussed has come to mean unimpressed. In 1999, this was considered a neologism meaning "not plussed" although "plussed" by itself is not a recognized English word. The "unimpressed" meaning is not considered standard usage.'

 

[irishdelinquent]

Field hockey?

I like the redundant ones like "PIN number" and "ATM machine."

I had to double-check "nonplussed" while writing today. Where the hell did that word come from, anyway? Can one be "plussed?"

Ice is thrown on because there is a non-ice bound variant of ice hockey (or rather, ice hockey is a variant of hockey). Sure, when an american says hockey you can be pretty sure he means the ice sliding one but it doesn't hurt to be sure. I agree with you on tuna fish.

Valid rebuttals. However, I think hockey should just be referred to as "Hockey", sans the ice as a prefix. Then, add on the appropriate prefix when you change playing surfaces. I dunno, it's just always bugged me a little. Hmmmm, perhaps this is a point to bring up on the anger thread! (gets out notepad to add to the list)

 

[Necrohydra]

I've a friend that's british, and occasionally we have to explain local sayings/colloquials to each other. For example, that when I said biscuit, I was referring to a bread-like breakfast...roll....thing. And pop.

Favorite word? It's probably potato. I don't know why, but there's a somewhat funny story behind it.

@irishdelinquent: While I quite agree with you that saying "Tuna Fish" is redundant, that's how I grew up hearing it said. We didn't have "Tuna Sandwiches", we had "Tuna Fish Sandwiches". I don't know why or how we started saying it like that. I suppose tuna fish sounds more appetizing than tuna? It's not an insult to your intelligence should I say it like that, it's a force of habit from when I was a kid.

And that anger thread's locked. Happened JUST as I had finished a long rant on academia's finer...points. I need to build a dome now.

 

[m_jim]

First, I love the word "defenestrate," which means to throw something out of a window. That we have a word to describe that specific action always makes me smile.
Second, the word "embarazada" in Spanish. Despite the fact that it looks/sounds like the word "embarrassed," it means nothing of the sort. So, people trying to cobble together the sentiment that they are embarrassed accidentally say that they are pregnant, a wonderful little misunderstanding.

 

[Anarchemitis]

A large window for me opened up in Star Wars battlefront when I learned that 'brauche' is German for 'need'. I know it's an odd keysone word for oneself, but meh, whatever works.

And I always though Guesundiet meant "God bless you" but I guess it means "Good health", because I often see the friendly chat being filled with 'brauche guesundiet'.

 

[Pzest]

Two of my favorites that are useful:
ultra-crepidarian: giving opinions or criticism beyond one's own range of experience.
kalopsia: the delusion that things are more beautiful than they really are.

Two of my favorites that are just fun words:
cataglottism: kissing with the tongue
absquatulate: flee, make off; abscond

And one that is perfect for consonant-screwed Scrabble players:
euouae: a type of cadence in medieval music

 

[cleverlymadeup]

ummm for me it would be a couple

masticate - to chew (it just sounds dirty)
truthiness - to know something from the gut without verification of facts or anything (not really a word but it should be)

and from the original hebrew

messiah - anointed one or one who is covered in oil as in a person who is about to be crowned king (yeah it really does mean that, go ask someone who speaks hebrew)

the issue with english and other langs is that english has twice, if not more, the amount of words of the closest language and we're still making up words

some things have double meanings in other langs, such as tartaruga which in portuguese is uses for both turtle and tortoise

tho i personally like to hear other ppl speak in foreign languages about computers cause they use the english words for stuff like RAM, CPU and so forth

i also know a couple ppl who speak gaelic but argue in english cause english has better insults

 

[Anarchemitis]

Awesome Sauce
lolz
(Both of the above are my style, don't cramp it.)
And in the presence of people of lesser than smart status (aka kids) Then i prey of them via their convienient non-knowledge of other langauges. Like so:
(The thing I say in brackets is a translation, not said to the victim)
Boobies123:ur ghey
Anarchemitis: Oh yes? Guten Tag vien berliner. {Good Day (something or other, probably not a word) Citizen of Berlin}
Boobies123:wo pulling some crazy nazi (expletive)//1! get away stpuid nazi
Anarchemitis: Silly American. Think that World War 2 was a glorious affair and Germany is still Naziist?
Boobies123:America is the total bwst!
Boobies123:best*
Anarchemitis: And I suppose you think we use the metric minute too?

And the conversation continues. But this thread is not about pwning the less intelligent, it is about being lost and found in translation, so let us be rid of my tangent.

I've always thought (even though I could not speak them eloquently) that French, Spainish and Italian languages are so poetic. I've also heard that if oneself learns two of the languages then the third will come naturally.

 

[00exmachina]

lol personally I love it when people elaborate upon simple things. I tend to notice that Americans do this a lot. For example, I've heard many Americans use the phrase "Ice Hockey" or "Tuna Fish". This makes me giggle. I know that tuna is a fish, so why say it? Why do you need to through the "ice" on there? I can gather that it tends to be on ice, being a canuck and all

Well there's also field hockey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey), and street hockey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_hockey), and air hockey but that's played on a table.

Word wise my favorite would have to be defenestrate. (greatest word ever)

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Favourite words : intangible (just how it sounds) and facetious (Because it contains all the vowels in alphabetical order)

Spanish : Wife and Handcuff are the same word.

French : Why did the Frenchman only have one egg for breakfast?
Because one egg is un oeuf.

And French have le parking.

Arabic : Was a written language before a spoken one.

Chinese : Sounds on the inbreath / Japanese : Sounds on the outbreath.

Southern American and Celtic is just teh sexy.

How Americans tend to think the Brummy accent is cute, when we think it's nasal to the extreme.

Chinese signature on credit cards in 'heiroglyphics'.

Klingons/Darth Vader in German/Gujarati or Russian : Ten times scarier.

'Fabracati Diem Pvnc' or just 'Romanae Etae Domus'

 

[AnGeL.SLayer]

My old Japanese teacher from highschool wasn't exactly a master of the English language yet and teaching him words was always fun.
Like castigate, elaborate when used as a verb, I even taught him how to properly say a quintouple negative in Japanese. I even got the pleasure of teaching him about Hair Metal and why Poison is the enemy. (Mostly because White Snake rules.)

Lets run away together. hehe


^_^

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Southern American and Celtic is just teh sexy.

celtic is nice to hear, and south american do you mean maya or portugese?

How Americans tend to think the Brummy accent is cute, when we think it's nasal to the extreme.

which one is the brummy? cause honestly a nice smarmy brit saying bollocks is just awesome to hear

tho i do quite enjoy little old ladies with a nice scotish burr, it makes me giggle

Chinese signature on credit cards in 'heiroglyphics'.

that's how they right their names and also those hieroglyphs aren't hieroglyphes are logograms and also if you write it once anyone in china, who can read, can read the words on the page, the emporer got sick of writing things 20-30 times in different langs so made the writing system universal

the funny part about english is it's the hardest lang to learn on the planet, there's no family it belongs to, it is equally latin based as it is tuetonic with some hebrew and arabic tossed in for good measure

 

[m_jim]

the funny part about english is it's the hardest lang to learn on the planet, there's no family it belongs to, it is equally latin based as it is tuetonic with some hebrew and arabic tossed in for good measure

I know that English is a bastard child of language, but you claim that we have common use Arabic words? Anything other than the word "assassin" or things that you would order at a restaurant?

 

[Easykill]

Assassin, Dickinson, and Analysis. Because I have a sick sense of humour.