Any language, explain what it means if it’s not English.
For example (as a non-native speaker) I’ve always liked the English word ‘unprecedented’, mostly in the context of fiction. Especially if it paints some entity to be really mystical or wondrous or it’s own never before seen order of magnitude in any way.
Dificilisimo. Spanish word meaning very difficult. I just love the way it sounds though.
Gruntled. It means pleased or contented. It’s the positive form of the much more common “disgruntled”. If someone is caught in the rain, they may be disgruntled about being wet. But you very rarely hear the word “gruntled” used.
Similarly, “whelmed” is a word, which basically means “submerged” or “engulfed”. You can be _over_whelmed by emotion, meaning you were completely overtaken and swept away by the emotion. You can be _under_whelmed by an experience, meaning it failed to fully meet your expectations. But you can also just be whelmed. The experience did exactly what you expected; no more, no less.
I have 2, spangled and gumption.
I have a few favorite ones in english (which is not my first language) of the top of my head:
-Document/documented (I particularly like the Q sound of the second syllable and the cadence of the pronunciation)
-Cocoon. (Just great. Satisfying to say. Makes me feel cosy. 10’s across the board)
-Gazebo. (Very removed from the usual sounds of my native language, unusual but fun)
Edited to add:
In spanish: Panóptico (panopticon) also satisfying to sat and with good cadence
Lautmalerei.
It’s just the German word for onomatopoeia (which also exists in the German language). It could be directly translated into soundpainting I suppose?
Tmesis. Breaking up a word and inserting another word.
Like absolutely becomes…
Abso-bloody-lutely.
Don’t think it has to be a swear word, but it seems most common. :)
Epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänsäkäänköhän.
It’s the longest word you can make in Finnish without using compounds, which can be infinite length.
It means, very loosely translated "I wonder if the outcome was a result of their lack of ability to cause others to be disorganized. "
I know, Finnish is an enviable language.
Am I understanding that Finnish has a way to combine words without being considered to be a compound? My very limited exposure to compound words (through German) was the very idea of mashing the words together made them compound.
We have a concept of word inflection, which can be used to replace a lot of words that English would use to denote something being a question, ownership markers, causes and effects etc.
Compounds are fun too, since you can do chaining:
Viskibassokitaravahvistinpiiri
Whisky base guitar amplifier circuit
We have a concept of word inflection, which can be used to replace a lot of words that English would use to denote something being a question, ownership markers, causes and effects etc.
I don’t speak Finnish, but I believe a good example for such an inflection is how in English you can glue an -s to words to make them plural. In some other languages, you say “many word” instead, because they don’t have such an inflection.
Scots is full of wonderful words - glaiket, baffies, birl, coorie - it’s hard to pick a favourite. But I’ll go for “thrawn” - it’s a kind of perverse stubbornness, a grim grip on a point of view.
English: Spaghettification (being ripped/stretched apart extremely violently)
Oh and almost forgot: Yeet is an actual word now, so that as well.
German: Zeitgeist (so well known you’ve probably heard it already [“spirit of the times”])
Programming languages: print(“lol, lmao even.”);
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (I hope I spelt that right)
I searched for the meaning and got a video clip instead of a musical about the word, still don’t know the meaning and I am fine with that, now I know how to sound precocious ;)
Fuck
The Swiss army knife of English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpV8D8K9JI
I love the word helicopter, because unobviously, the root words aren’t heli and copter, but are “helico”, meaning spiral, and “pter”, meaning wing.
I like the word “Unexpurgated”.
Waffle not the food just the word. It’s fun to say.
antidisestablishmentarianism. its a fun word to say.
i feel the same way about pneumonoultramicroscopicsyllacovolcanoconiosis. it’s fun to say!
it’s not considered a real word anymore (and from what i gather, never really was a real word, in the opinion of the english nerds who decide such things) but i learned how to say it, dammit! i can’t unlearn that!
i might have even learned how to spell it correctly. i didn’t check the spelling as i wrote it in this comment but i also don’t think it matters if i incorrectly spell a word that isn’t really a word. so… yeah…
anyways, it was possibly used as a complicated version of what was known as ‘black lung’ disease, which coal miners in the appalacians contracted from inhaling silica dusts, for anyone curious.
It should be “silico” instead of “syllaco”. It comes from “silicon”, like the dust you mentioned.
