# American English has no word for .... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 29, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659 "2009-10-29T21:12:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/41 "2009-10-30T00:02:54Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > I agree. > > From now on, instead of using the Farsi word _nakhur_, I’m going to tell everybody that I have a camel that will only give milk once its nostrils have been tickled. Yow, that’s dodgy. I wonder if Farsi has a word for _pelikanesis,_ the ability to move seabirds with one’s mind? ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/42 "2009-10-30T00:03:17Z")
There isn’t a word in English to describe the relationship of parents whose kids are married to each other. For example, if my son is married to Sally Smith, and Sally’s father and mother are John and Mary Smith, the most concise way to describe the relationship is to say “John and Mary Smith are my son’s in-laws.” As I understand it, such a word does exist in some African languages. When you say, “John and Mary Smith are our \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_,” people understand that your kid is married to their kid. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/43 "2009-10-30T00:05:43Z")
Ha! I can’t remember the word - it’s a Danish thing - begins with “H” I think - a sort of moment of gathering together, maybe lighting a candle :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/44 "2009-10-30T00:06:31Z")
Oh, now I remember, “Spicy Hot” as opposed to “Temperature Hot.” “The meal is too hot.” (But then we have to go on to say which type of hot we mean.) ==== “Bride Price,” being the money a man pays a woman to marry him. This is done in the Arab world. It is the opposite of “dowery.” ---
**Author:** ![Polly\_Glot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de053/32.png) [@Polly\_Glot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polly_Glot)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/45 "2009-10-30T00:07:00Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > I’m going to try and give a definition of “gezellig”: > > It’s the feeling you can enjoy when visiting friends and family, during a nice meal, snuggled up to your girlfriend, walking in the park, doing the dishes, or when you’re getting drunk with strangers. When describing situations it (almost?) always describes social situations - you can’t be/enjoy “gezellig(heid)” on your own. On the other hand, rooms, houses etc can also be gezellig, in which case the word more or less translates to “cozy”, but with an implication of rugs, plants/flowers and pictures of relatives. There’s no equivalent English translation because the only place a person can feel _gezellig_ is when he or she is actually there in the Netherlands! 😉 Also it doesn’t count as a word so much as a phrase - Spanish - _me gusta_ (“I like.”) The closest I can think of to translate that would be “… pleases me.” But that doesn’t have the same meaning, really, at all! ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/46 "2009-10-30T00:10:18Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > I really do agree with your previous comment. Ah, I thought that might’ve been the case, but I wasn’t sure. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/47 "2009-10-30T00:12:23Z")
> [@Polly\_Glot](#): > > Also it doesn’t count as a word so much as a phrase - Spanish - _me gusta_ (“I like.”) The closest I can think of to translate that would be “… pleases me.” But that doesn’t have the same meaning, really, at all! If you had a Romance version of my Germanic language game (see post 39), I believe the literal translation of that would be “the ice-cream gusts me”, as opposed to “the ice cream disgusts me.” How gruntling! ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/48 "2009-10-30T00:21:02Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > Ha! I can’t remember the word - it’s a Danish thing - begins with “H” I think - a sort of moment of gathering together, maybe lighting a candle :smack: [hygge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Denmark#.22Hygge.22). ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/49 "2009-10-30T00:23:33Z")
The way Australians use “bastard” probably has no direct equivalent elsewhere; uniquely perhaps your best friend is “a complete bastard” whereas your worst enemy is “a bit of a bastard”. > [@Scheidt-Hoch](#): > > It’s always been difficult to explain to Americans what ‘dodgy’ means. I don’t think there’s any exact equivalent. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I would call dodgy–meaning “full of trickery and cunning; devious”–as merely an uncommon word in American English, not a word that is not part of the language. Most people don’t know the words _philtrum_ or _versimilitude_ either. > [@Scheidt-Hoch](#): > > Yes, but you can have a dodgy computer, a dodgy car, a dodgy e-mail, a dodgy hamburger, a dodgy footballer etc etc. In Britain you can easily hear it several times a day, and I have met Americans who had never heard it. I disagree with “devious” here, as that would only cover one of the many applications of “dodgy”, the used car salesman type. IMO the best translation of “dodgy” is “unreliable”. It covers all those meanings as something or someone can be unreliable for many reasons: dishonesty, mechanical failure, poor quality, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/50 "2009-10-30T00:24:35Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > [hygge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Denmark#.22Hygge.22). Sounds gezellig 😃 ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/51 "2009-10-30T00:31:41Z")
Of the two useful chess terms ‘zugswang’ and ‘zweischenzug’, only one is in my UK English dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/52 "2009-10-30T00:31:52Z")
Some neat words from Scot Gaelic (from an old dictionary of mine): > [@](#): > > alla-bhuadhach: victorious, but in disgrace > > atamaich: to fondle an unreasonable person > > brioghmhoireachd: the state of being full of meaning > > easaraich: the state of requiring much attendance and service without moving from your seat > > laoran: a person too fond of the fireside > > mionagamaid: supressed anxious whispering > > plodh: anything put temporarily together; a sick person that dies on getting the slightest cold or injury; a man hardly hanging together > > ruic: undesirable fondness > > sgiomalaireachd: mean habits of popping in upon people at meals: living (and doing nothing) about gentlemen’s kitchens > > tacharan: the yelling of ghosts or orphans > > teodhadh: act of warming, simmering, glowing with love and my favorite… moit: pretended indifference, shyness while speaking about a thing one is very keen for (I love that last one because I thought I was the only one who felt that way, and here this culture has its own entire word for it) ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/53 "2009-10-30T00:45:23Z")
I found it interesting that Russian has several words, including _grust_’, _pecal_’, and _toska_, that are often translated as “sorrow”, “melancholy”, or “sadness”, but all of them are a little different and none of them equate exactly to their English translations. _Grust_’ implies something relatively light and temporary, while _pecal_’ is depper and long-lasting or permanent. \*Toska \*is sort of a longing for something lost to us, or which never existed at all and never can exist, the absence and inaccessibility of something good, an insatiable heartache. Strangely to an English-speaker, it doesn’t have an entirely negative connotation, either. In _Semantics, culture, and cognition: universal human concepts in culture_ (1992), \*toska \*is described thusly: > [@](#): > > X thinks something like this: > -I want something good to happen. > -I don’t know what. > -I know it cannot happen. > because of this, X feels something. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/54 "2009-10-30T00:53:44Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > [hygge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Denmark#.22Hygge.22). Oh thanks **Chez** 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/55 "2009-10-30T00:53:51Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > \*Toska \*is sort of a longing for something lost to us, or which never existed at all and never can exist, the absence and inaccessibility of something good, an insatiable heartache. Strangely to an English-speaker, it doesn’t have an entirely negative connotation, either. That covers much of the feeling that inspired the output of the Smiths and other British bands in the 1980s. I think ‘nostalgia’ in its broadest sense (bearing in mind that ‘…algia’ means pain) at least overlaps with this word (as well as the aforementioned Portuguese word ‘suadade’). ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/56 "2009-10-30T00:58:31Z")
Quoting **gallowsfodder** : “sgiomalaireachd: mean habits of popping in upon people at meals: living (and doing nothing) about gentlemen’s kitchens” This is known as “foodfoot” in the West Indies. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/57 "2009-10-30T01:20:01Z")
Quoth **Giles** : > [@](#): > > American English has no (single) word for the British English “biscuit”. Words don’t stand for words; they stand for things or concepts. Sure, there’s no American word that precisely translates the British “biscuit”, but there doesn’t need to be: For any given thing that a Brit would call a biscuit, the Americans have a word for it. If anything, it’s the Brits that are lacking in this comparison, because they don’t have a single word for “small sweet baked good” or for “small salty baked good”, but would instead need to use a phrase like “sweet biscuit”. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/58 "2009-10-30T01:22:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Words don’t stand for words; they stand for things or concepts. Sure, there’s no American word that precisely translates the British “biscuit”, but there doesn’t need to be: For any given thing that a Brit would call a biscuit, the Americans have a word for it. If anything, it’s the Brits that are lacking in this comparison, because they don’t have a single word for “small sweet baked good” or for “small salty baked good”, but would instead need to use a phrase like “sweet biscuit”. No – the words “cookie” and “cracker” have entered British English. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/59 "2009-10-30T01:24:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Giles** :Words don’t stand for words; they stand for things or concepts. Well, one concept is the particular class denoted by the British English word “biscuit”, in all of and no more than its generality. **Giles’** claim is that American English lacks a single word for this particular conceptual category, whatever it is, even if it has single words which refer to every “particular” variety of good which falls under this heading. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659/60 "2009-10-30T01:30:53Z")
> [@JohnnyMac](#): > > I like this word a lot, and miss it’s existence in English. I know you are joking here, but I have to admit that reading the post about ‘saudade’ brought the feeling over me. A whistful, longing feeling of wanting to have this word be a word we actually use in English. Particulaly because this time of the year is a time that brings this feeling on for me. Brisk Autumn air and colorful leaves always gives me a ghostly yearning for that feeling I used to get in childhood around Halloween time. But, anyways, can someone confirm for me that ‘wabi sabi’ is indeed pronounced ‘wobby sobby’. I love the idea of that word, and I always am afraid to use it because I am worried I will pronounce it incorrectly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-english-has-no-word-for/515659.md?page=4)