Words the English Language needs

[Ban]

Reminder to self. Don't bother with the word abgehen while in Germany.

 

[Finchbearer]

It is. It's one of the many words English borrowed from German, along with, uh, schadenfreude, kindergarten, glockenspiel, blitzkrieg, rucksack... but at least you guys use those words right. Germans tend to borrow English words and then use them completely wrong. Like, our mobile phones for instance. We call them "Handy". Probably because they fit a hand nicely.

In the UK we don’t say kindergarten at all, for early years education it’s nursery and pre-school, but everyone knows what kindergarten is because of American TV culture! I like ‘handy’.

 

[Mad Swede]

The word I miss most in the English language is the equivalent of the Swedish word "lagom". Translating that is incredibly difficult, partly because the word hasd a sense which is very context specific and partly because the sense(s) of the word mean far more than just a translation like "enough" or "sufficient"

 

[JBCrowson]

Yeah, I've tried translating songs before. Sometimes you have to replace a whole sentence with something else with different meaning but similar feeling to fit the verse. It has its own fun, but pros and cons.

Yeah reading the english and german versions of the lyrics to Nena's 99 (red) balloons in highschool illustrated how in order to keep the syllable count the same to match the music you have to alter the words to a slightly different meaning - the ballons are not red in german as they are in english.

 

[JBCrowson]

words never exactly mean anything

I'm with Alice (well actually the queen) on this one in saying 'the words mean precisely what I want them to mean.'

 

[pmmg]

Sorry, that's not Alice and never was...or was it always was?

Words are tricky.

 

[JBCrowson]

Sorry, that's not Alice and never was.

it was the Queen of Hearts, but it was in the Alice books, in the court scene I think.

 

[Karlin]

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”​

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

 

[pmmg]

 

[JBCrowson]

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’​

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’​

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”​

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Thanks for correcting, been a while since I read Alice!