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For all you junior linguists out there, you might be interested in reading, They Have a Word for It: A lighthearted lexicon of untranslatable words & phrases, which was recommended to me by an anthropology professor a few years back. Like the title says, it is full of words which are untranslatable in English, yet so succinct in their denotation that one wonders why we must fumble over ways to describe such ideas instead of adopting them.
Here's one I found by opening the book to a random page:
bettschwere (German): A state of consciousness too ponderous for anything but sleep.
and another:
razbliuto (Russian): The feeling a person has for someone he or she once loved but now does not.
Albedo: - noun, pl. -dos.
1. Astronomy. The ratio of the light reflected by a planet or satellite to that received by it.
2. Meteorology. Such a ratio for any part of the earth's surface or atmosphere.
3. The white, inner rind of a citrus fruit.
(For this word I will admit to garnering a little assistance from my Dictionary.com app for more succinct definitions than I can provide.)
Bonus word. I've been thinking about these all day today, and I would like to invite those interested to ponder fenestrations:
- noun
1.
the design and disposition of windows and other exterior openings of a building.
2.
Furniture. an ornamental motif having the form of a blind arcade or arch, as in medieval cabinetwork.
3.
Medical, Surg.
1. a perforation in a structure.
2. an operation to effect such an opening.
3. Also called fenestration operation, Lempert operation. the creation of an artificial opening into the labyrinth of the ear to restore hearing loss from otosclerosis.
Origin: 1840–50; < L fenestrāt(us) (see fenestrated) + -ion
Sorry. That one was pretty long, but it is all 100% interesting.
Definition 4, Katie style: openings or windows. Botany: Lightly colored or white translucent patches on a leaf or flower structure to allow light to pass.
This is not one I came up with, but my teacher has had several rants of how this word should be coined, so I thought I'd share it.
"hir" , a mix between he and her. I still don't understand the plural representation of this word my teacher was aiming at.
BTW, "noops" is said with a rising inflection, indicating surpirse at the discovery of a forgotten task.
On the theme of words that should exist: If "typo" is an abbreviation for a typographical error, then there should also be "grammo" and "puncco" for grammatical and punctuation errors. I'm still thinking of a good one for syntax errors. "Syncco", perhaps.
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