The word subtle (technically its older spelling subtil) occurs three times in the King James version of the Old Testament, translating three different Hebrew words transliterated as `ârûwm (cunning), châkâm (intelligent), and nâtsar (guarded or hidden). None of them quite captures the usual modern meaning of subtle.
Yeah, I think maybe English is unusual that it uses the same word for both. In the languages I know, there seems to be a distinction in words between knowing a fact and knowing a person.
To further confuse matters, asses is the plural of both ass and as (an ancient Roman coin). I once read an article in a respectable newspaper by someone who was convinced that the Romans used donkeys as money. You know, because she read about them paying so many asses for this and so many asses for that.
Speaking of sarcasm, what about snark/snarky. I work with a Spanish woman who has no sense of sarcasm and totally doesn’t get snark, which I thought of as combining sarcasm with humor.
Vaquero is also the source of English “buckaroo”.
Is that a typo? Otherwise I don’t follow.
I always thought snark was a mashup of snide remark.
“Snarky” goes back to the 19th century, with a similar range of meaning, so it does not seem to be a portmanteau, but it’s hard to tell for me.
Cite.
Using any word for condescension (irony) is not really about the denotation of that particular word, but rather the usage and context. It’s a functional issue, rather than semantic.
There may not be a particular word in another language that directly maps with cute through translation–and which also functionally is used to convey that irony–but that language will just convey the irony using another word. (I hear Spanish speakers in Colombia, for example, saying bonito in the same way.) So to say they “don’t have a word for cute” is kind of mixing apples and oranges–function vs. semantics.
I think when people say X language doesn’t have a word for Y, they’re often mixing apples and oranges linguistically speaking. They’re conflating semantics and pragmatics.
Phelps’ answer would of course be “I swim”. But the Latin word for “I swim” is “no”.
Oh, you! :smack:
When I was studying at Université Laval, in Quebec City, which is very francophone, there were posters throughout the athletic facilities with a mascot, a big goofy dog playing hockey, whose name was “Monsieur Fair-play.” The posters were all about fair conduct, keeping the facilities clean, no dirty hits, and so on. Seemed odd to me, since Laval was a francophone university in a francophone town.
One day when we were putting on our skates, I asked a québécois buddy why the mascot was called “Fair-Play”?
He replied that he couldn’t think of a French word that had the same connotations.
“Je t’aime” can be “I like you” or “I love you”.
“Je t’adore” is “I adore you.”
What, Fenstersturz ?
How about the word “gerrymander”?
I’ve read that the practice has been universal, in all places and at all times throughout history, where voters elect their officials by districts. Where district lines can be contrived to promote a desired outcome, they will be and always have been.
But the term “gerrymander” is a strictly American invention, arising in the early days of the nation (1812).
What words/phrases for this are used in other places where this practice happens, and what are the literal meanings and connotations of those?
One of the great joys of learning a new language is discovering these odd little differences - I’m carrying my pajamas now. (Or rather, “now I Pajamas carry.”) It was weird to discover that a pair of pants and a pair of glasses were singular, as in “a pant” and [a thing you wear on your face to help you see].
I don’t really know German, btw. Just studied it in school and I’m interested in the language. I find it mostly very straightforward. The things like carrying your clothes or pants being singular were just like learning any other vocabulary.
WRT “wissen”: how would you say “I know” in the context of not knowing for a fact but having a strong suspicion? “You said you weren’t into Richard, but I know you totally have the hots for him.”
Well, that’s a relief. I’d hate to think that chihuahua wanted to schtupp a burrito.
German also uses the same word for “cooking” (as in cuisine) and “kitchen” (as in, the room of the house where cooking is usually done). In fact, both English words come from that root (“Kuchen”, IIRC).
They both appear to eventually come from the Latin verb coquere, “to cook.” Polish does the same thing in terms of “cuisine” and “kitchen” being the same word (unsurprisingly, as the word is kuchnia in Polish, and you can see the German influence there.) And, of course, “kitchen” can also be used to mean “cuisine” in English, though not as commonly.
Not exactly, the cook/kitchen distinction is there even in the proto-German, and stretches back from there to the Latin coquus/coquina distinction - our “cooking” seems to derive via proto-Germanic from *kukōną which is from coquus - “cook”(the profession) whereas “kitchen” derives from *kukinā which comes from coquina - both “cookery” and “kitchen”. But the latter derives from the former, anyway. So ultimately yes, the same root, but that root isn’t Kuchen, it’s coquo
All of which I first encountered while doing a wiki dive for the word coquina, as it’s part of the title of one of my medieval cookbooks. Turns out Liber de Coquina wasn’t just how to cook clams.
Gerrymander is a compound of salamander, which is how the redisributed districts looked on a map, and the name of the man who invented the prac tice