Foreign Language Word of the Day

[Ken, Moderator]

I might, too, Grebrim -- if I could pronounce it! German pronunciation always sounds a bit like you've something in your throat as you speak.

[Carol]

Like you have swallowed your rrrrr's maybe. Hee hee. I am into Tolstoy right now.

[Ken, Moderator]

I heart Tolstoy. Apparently there is a new movie just released about his last days starring Helen Mirren as his over-the-top wife and Christopher Plummer as old Lev himself. It's called The Last Station if you're interested.

[grebrim]

I know what you mean, NE. Growing up with German as my first language, when I started speaking English, it felt to me as if no one were actually saying what they meant, as everything sounded so, well, incredibly soft to me. Salt just didn't sound quite as salty as Salz, not to mention pepper for Pfeffer.

[Ken, Moderator]

Well, you write marvelous English, Grebrim! Kudos to yudos on that count.

[grebrim]

Thank you! And that from a New Englander, consider me deeply flattered.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

What are you saying about New Englanders grebrim?!! That they are grumpy, curmudgeonly and sparing with praise.....oh....wait......you're right!

[grebrim]

No, not a bit, I had no idea they had that reputation. I meant they are reputed to speak good English. Wouldn't you say so?

[Carol]

Ayup!!!!! and so much more. I thought we all did. Maybe not. I know I can't punctuate or spell worth beans.haha. :)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

I was joking.....and no, they speak terrible (ie American) English (another joke) AND they can't spell properly (not joking)!! The only people who speak English properly are the English (and other Commonwealth partners)!

[Carol]

Me know you joke. Me speak American Indian now. Part of my ancestry. (Cherokee)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

How!

[Harvey]

Debbie wrote: "I was joking.....and no, they speak terrible (ie American) English (another joke) AND they can't spell properly (not joking)!! The only people who speak English properly are the English (and other ..."

Thank you Debbie! :))

[Carol]

Well, Thank You and you?

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

xoxo

[Carol]

Back at you. Have a good day. hehe. Or as Gabi would say g'day (think that is how you spell it)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

You got it! I am off to watch a DVD with my daughter (she is home alone today....a hunting widow....)

[Harvey]

Muwahhhh! XXX Debbie. Mind you, in the Middle-East one does hear some Commonwealth English spoken by Indians that is certainly interesting, or shall I say quirky. As a sometime editor my sanity sometimes gets in question. :))

[Ken, Moderator]

I'm afraid grebrim knows of what he speaks. New Englanders (as long as they are not Bostonians, Rhode Islanders, or Maine-ahs) speak impeccable English.

And Deb is right (again), too. We're curmudgeonly, uncommunicative, reticent, wary, and slow to get to know. Nice to meet you.

[Savvy]

But as the song goes...." I WISH THEY COULD BE ALL CALIFORNIA GIRLS"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BADZW9...

[Ken, Moderator]

No, not that song! (It inspired The Beatles to compose "Back in the USSR," at least.)

[grebrim]

...and me to visit California when I was nineteen and have a blast. Thank you, Brian Wilson!

[Sarah]

Here's another German word I like: "Schmierstoff."
It sounds like "smear stuff," and that's what it is. (Lubricant.)

[grebrim]

Accordingly, a Schmierlappen, literally lube cloth, is someone unpleasant, smudgy and immoral.

[Ken, Moderator]

Oh, those crazy Germans.

[grebrim]

Ja!

[grebrim]

Vigliacco, [vihl-yak-koh:], Italian for "coward"

There are several ways to be a coward in Italian, the "codardo" has no courage, trembles and absconds, the "vile" lacks both courage and honour, while the "vigliacco" has no sense of shame on top of that.

[Ken, Moderator]

I thought it was "Mussoliniacco."

[grebrim]

Set in an Italian seaside resort, Th. Mann's "Mario and the Magician" is an excellent novella on how bizarre looking dictators could bring European peoples on their side in the early 20th century, in case you're interested.

[Stephen]

S. wrote: "I would like to contribute the German word "Arschbombe," which is the cannonball style of jumping into the pool. Literally I bet you can figure it out."

And all this time I thought it was a clothing store that employed shirtless men...

[Scribble]

I once wrote to the Goethe Institute in Germany when it came to my attention that the powers that be were planning to publicise a word (the choice of which had been determined by vote) for german language students as conveying something of deep cultural meaning.

Fachidiot = someone who knows so much about a subject that their expession of it becomes incomprehensible.

It is pronounced f**k-idiot.

[Carol]

And never a word was more telling then that.LOL

[Malcolm]

Ipsissima verba [L], the very words. ---ipsissimis verbis, in the very words; quoted exactly.

[Andrez]

G N wrote: "I once wrote to the Goethe Institute in Germany when it came to my attention that the powers that be were planning to publicise a word (the choice of which had been determined by vote) for german l..."

thats my favorite for sure

[Andrez]

salamaleque [sah-lah-mah-leck] (Portuguese)


exaggerated courtesies or reverences

comes from the word "salam"

(funny that there are so many synonyms and that most of them are big words like this one)

[Alisha]

An approximation...[HAHMbelam] (flat tones) in Cantonese means "altogether". Yay!

[Stephen]

My foreign language word of the day is treyf it's another great yiddish/jewish word. It means unfit to be eaten or used. It's the antonym of Kosher meaning proper. It's from the Hebrew for torn flesh.