8 Words They Don't Have In English

[M Winther]

"Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in3-untranslatable1-tb

[David D S]

The obvious word I know, and was mildly surprised it wasn't in the
list, because I
thought it was a well-known example: (quoted from wikipedia)

"Hiraeth /hɪəraɪ̯θ/ is a Welsh word that has no direct English
translation.
The University of Wales, Lampeter attempts to define it as homesickness
tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of
longing,
yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of
the past."

I have seen it used in a more general sense and not restricted just to
Wales.

--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
valid for at least 2 weeks from 2014/9/17 18:22:18

[James Hogg]

David D S wrote:
> M Winther wrote:
>
>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>> http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in
>> 3-untranslatable1-tb
>
> The obvious word I know, and was mildly surprised it wasn't in the
> list, because I
> thought it was a well-known example: (quoted from wikipedia)
>

> "Hiraeth /h??ra???/ is a Welsh word that has no direct English

> translation.
> The University of Wales, Lampeter attempts to define it as homesickness
> tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of
> longing,
> yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of
> the past."
>
> I have seen it used in a more general sense and not restricted just to
> Wales.

It's easy to translate into Portuguese: saudade.

--
James

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

David D S skrev:

> The obvious word I know, and was mildly surprised it wasn't in
> the list, because I thought it was a well-known example:
> (quoted from wikipedia)

I was not surprised to discover that the Danish "hyggelig" was
among the words, but I question the whole concept of
intranslatability. There is seldom a one to one relationship
between words in different languages, and even if there is, they
are often not quite the same anyway.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[J. J. Lodder]

Like Dutch 'gezellig', also untranslatble,

Jan

[Steve Hayes]

On 17 Sep 2014 10:25:33 GMT, "David D S" <inv...@m-invalid.invalid> wrote:

>M Winther wrote:
>
>>
>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>> http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in
>> 3-untranslatable1-tb
>
>The obvious word I know, and was mildly surprised it wasn't in the
>list, because I
>thought it was a well-known example: (quoted from wikipedia)
>

>"Hiraeth /h??ra???/ is a Welsh word that has no direct English

>translation.
>The University of Wales, Lampeter attempts to define it as homesickness
>tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of
>longing,
>yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of
>the past."
>
>I have seen it used in a more general sense and not restricted just to
>Wales.

Heimwee?


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-17, M Winther <ml...@swipnet.se> wrote:

> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
> http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in3-untranslatable1-tb

As usual, the article immediately contradicts its premise and gives
English translations for these words.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[James Silverton]

Is "hyggelig" a bit like "gem�tlich" in German?


--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[Pablo]

M Winther wrote:

>
> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"

> http://www.spam.com

More damned spam.

--
Pablo

http://www.ipernity.com/home/313627
http://paulc.es/

[Pablo]

Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> On 2014-09-17, M Winther <ml...@swipnet.se> wrote:
>
>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>> http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in3-untranslatable1-tb
>
> As usual, the article immediately contradicts its premise and gives
> English translations for these words.
>

It's that people think of translations as having to have the same number of
words (in this case 1). What about all our lovely phrasal verbs and compound
nouns etc.?

And "sobremesa" these days more often means "desktop" as in PC etc.

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-17, Bertel Lund Hansen <kanon...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

> I was not surprised to discover that the Danish "hyggelig" was

Does "hyggelig" have an etymological connection with English "hug"?

> among the words, but I question the whole concept of
> intranslatability. There is seldom a one to one relationship
> between words in different languages, and even if there is, they
> are often not quite the same anyway.

Yes, it's trivial and boring.

Here is another German word English doesn't have: Stift.

What's it mean? Well, a pin or a pen (for some meanings of the
English words).

So English does have words for it? Yes, but see, English doesn't
have a _single_ word that covers both pins and pens. So the
freestanding sentence

Er hat einen Stift. -> He has a ___.

is untranslatable.

Pick up a bilingual dictionary. See the entries where for a word
in one language several possibilities are given in the other language?
These are all "untranslatable".

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 8:44:02 AM UTC-4, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> Here is another German word English doesn't have: Stift.
> What's it mean? Well, a pin or a pen (for some meanings of the
> English words).
> So English does have words for it? Yes, but see, English doesn't
> have a _single_ word that covers both pins and pens. So the
> freestanding sentence
> Er hat einen Stift. -> He has a ___.
> is untranslatable.

Not a problem in the St. Louis, Missouri, area, where /I/ and /E/
have merged before nasals, giving rise to the lexical contrast
between "pin" and "ink pin."

And a Stiftung, for some reason, is a foundation that funds academic
projects or scholarships.

[Whiskers]

On 2014-09-17, David D S <inv...@m-invalid.invalid> wrote:
> M Winther wrote:
>
>>
>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>> http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in
>> 3-untranslatable1-tb
>
> The obvious word I know, and was mildly surprised it wasn't in the
> list, because I
> thought it was a well-known example: (quoted from wikipedia)
>
> "Hiraeth /hɪəraɪ̯θ/ is a Welsh word that has no direct English
> translation.
> The University of Wales, Lampeter attempts to define it as homesickness
> tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of
> longing,
> yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of
> the past."
>
> I have seen it used in a more general sense and not restricted just to
> Wales.

If you insist that it refers specifically to Wales, you handily provide
a one-word English equivalent - namely, "Welsh". Although that does
have somewhat wider implications too.

But the English people are perfectly capable of understanding and
expressing the non-Welsh concept of "hiraeth" in English - "melancholic
nostalgia" seems to cover it pretty well. Browning's poem "Home
Thoughts from Abroad" must have been inspired by such feelings.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Jack Campin]

>> I question the whole concept of intranslatability. There is seldom
>> a one to one relationship between words in different languages,
>> and even if there is, they are often not quite the same anyway.

> Yes, it's trivial and boring. [...]

> Pick up a bilingual dictionary. See the entries where for
> a word in one language several possibilities are given in
> the other language? These are all "untranslatable".

There are situations where it's less trivial. Kinship systems
divide family trees up in different ways; a language/culture
very different from the Western one might only be able to
translate "cousin" or "in-law" by spelling out explicitly what
nodes in the tree were covered by the word, and we'd have to
do the same for their kinship terms. (I've seen this spelt out
explicitly for Samoan but I forget where). And the kinship
terms will often carry a range of expectations about the kind
of behaviour that goes along with being in that kin relationship,
and maybe a bunch of stereotypes about emotion and character.
A literal translation of Turkish "amca" (not just "uncle", but
father's brother in particular) would miss a lot of connotations
the word has.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Whiskers]

On 2014-09-17, Bertel Lund Hansen <kanon...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

Sometimes the easy-looking one-word substitution can be very misleading.

Not to mention the difficulty of determining exactly what constitutes "a
word". English "police station" is German "Polizeistation" or Italian
"stazione di polizia" so is that one word, or two, or three? That
example is clearly as much about orthography as about language; what if
the etymology is apparently unrelated, eg Welsh "Neuadd y dref" is
English "Town Hall" and German "Rathaus".

[David D S]

Well, I think the problem is that the restriction seems to be that the
one word in one language should correspond with one word in the
other, so your example would fail.

However, the more I think of it, the more I think this is really a
rather
tricky concept (untranslatability) because it has been left too vague,
and, as was pointed out, there are often many subtle differences
between what at first glance seems to be a straighforward and
direcr translation.

Here's another example: long (龙) in Chinese is often translated
into "dragon" in English, but the two beasts are so different in
characteristics and features that they could hardly be said to be
the same (mythical) animal. Does this make the two terms
untranslatible between the two languages (meaning one word in
one language maps onto one word in the other, with the same
coverage and nothing extra)?

--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be

valid for at least 2 weeks from 2014/9/18 2:02:23

[Dr Nick]

Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:

> On 2014-09-17, Bertel Lund Hansen <kanon...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>> I was not surprised to discover that the Danish "hyggelig" was
>
> Does "hyggelig" have an etymological connection with English "hug"?
>
>> among the words, but I question the whole concept of
>> intranslatability. There is seldom a one to one relationship
>> between words in different languages, and even if there is, they
>> are often not quite the same anyway.
>
> Yes, it's trivial and boring.

Agreed. We've established here that there are even words that one
variety of English has that another doesn't. There appears to be no
single BrE* word that covers both a McDonalds and The Savoy Grill.

* possibly using that term for nearly the last time!

[Whiskers]

When Anne McCaffrey's 'Pern' novels are translated into Chinese, what
are the dragons there called?

[Whiskers]

Even if Scotland does secede from the UK, the term BrE will be neither
more nor less useful than before.

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-17, Pablo <no...@nowhere.net> wrote:

>>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>> http://www.babbel.com/magazine/untranslatable-01?slc=engmag-a18-vid-in3-untranslatable1-tb
>

> And "sobremesa" these days more often means "desktop" as in PC etc.

It just means "over/on (the) table", something like Latin "super
mensa", right? Having a talk over dinner... hardly an alien concept
to English speakers.

In fact, as soon as you can parse those foreign words, the mystique
starts to fade quickly:

"utepils" is "out pils", i.e., "an outside beer".

"verschlimmbessern" is a portmanteau of "verschlimmern" (make worse)
and "verbessern" (make better). Presumably it started out as a pun.
Another popular German word constructed from contradictory components
is "jein", yes and no, "j(a) + (n)ein".

And while I can't untangle "desenrascanço", it seems to express the
same sentiment as French "se débrouiller".

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-17, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

[German "Stift"]

> And a Stiftung, for some reason, is a foundation that funds academic
> projects or scholarships.

The verb "stiften", of obscure origin, is somewhere in the semanic
field of "donate, found", e.g. donating prize money or providing
the capital for a foundation. It's the source of the noun "Stift"
(neuter), which is some type of monastary and related churchly
enterprises. There is also "Religionsstifter", the founding figure
of a religion, e.g. Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha. The term is neutral
in that it doesn't claim one way or another whether the person was
a prophet etc., just that they were central to the establishment
of a particular faith.

"Stift" (masculine), the pen/pin thing, is unrelated and probably
derives from "steif", cf. English "stiff".

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-17, Jack Campin <bo...@purr.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>> Yes, it's trivial and boring. [...]
>> Pick up a bilingual dictionary. See the entries where for
>> a word in one language several possibilities are given in
>> the other language? These are all "untranslatable".
>
> There are situations where it's less trivial.

There is this fundamental realization that different languages carve
up the world differently into semantic fields, and grammaticalize
different concepts, and once you have understood this, it's just a
matter of learning the details.

> Kinship systems divide family trees up in different ways;

Sure, some languages famously make an obligatory distinction between
older and younger siblings, your mother's or your father's siblings,
and don't have overly general terms like "brother", "sister", "aunt",
or "uncle".

That's not fundamentally different from this chain of overlapping
semantic fields where the correct translation depends on the exact
shade of meaning:

(English) screw bolt pin
\ / \ / \
(German) Schraube Bolzen Stift

> And the kinship
> terms will often carry a range of expectations about the kind
> of behaviour that goes along with being in that kin relationship,
> and maybe a bunch of stereotypes about emotion and character.

Well, yes, and women are meek and demure. Etc.

[James Hogg]

Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> And while I can't untangle "desenrascan�o", it seems to express the
> same sentiment as French "se d�brouiller".

Let me try. It's ultimately related to the English word "rash" (the skin
complaint), which probably goes back to an unattested post-classical
Latin verb *rasicare meaning "to scratch". That gave Portuguese "rascar"
(scratch, scrape), and that scraping movement gave the name to a dragnet
or trawl-net, "rasca". This is the source of the verb "enrascar" (to
net, ensnare, entangle). With the prefix "des-" you get a verb meaning
"to disentangle" and the noun "desenrascan�o" meaning the act or art of
getting out of difficulties, now with specifically Portuguese
connotations of improvised and inventive ways of doing so.

--
James

[David D S]

I have no idea because (a) I have never seen those books on sale in
China, even in the original English version at, say, the Foreign
Languages
Bookshop in Wangfujing, Beijing (b) I wouldn't be able to read the
Chinese
version anyway even if it was available.

However, it is my experience that when we write "dragon" in English,
referring
to the dragons that occur in Western literature, they just use the
Chinese word
for dragon, but all Chinese will say that these things are completely
different
from Chinese dragons, or they will translate it as "Western Dragon".

--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be

valid for at least 2 weeks from 2014/9/18 6:12:40

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

James Silverton skrev:

> Is "hyggelig" a bit like "gem�tlich" in German?

That is the word I would choose as translation, and I think its
meaning is quite close.

"Hyggelig" can be used in several contexts. A guy may be hyggelig
which means that he is likeable and laid back. A party may be
hyggeligt which means that most or all people were nice and easy
to talk to, and there were no heated discussions.

"At hygge sig" has to do with nice company and people doing
something together in a relaxed atmosphere. It need not be more
than just sitting down and talk over a cup of coffee or a beer.

If I talk to a stranger on the bus or the train - which by the
way doesn't happen often - I would probably say as farewell: "It
was hyggeligt to talk to you". I would of course use the word
"nice" if we had spoken in English. That would mean the same.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Pierre Jelenc]

In article <lvcuvq$2l2$2...@dont-email.me>,

James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>Christian Weisgerber wrote:

>> And while I can't untangle "desenrascan?", it seems to express the
>> same sentiment as French "se débrouiller".

>
>net, ensnare, entangle). With the prefix "des-" you get a verb meaning

>"to disentangle" and the noun "desenrascan?" meaning the act or art of

>getting out of difficulties, now with specifically Portuguese
>connotations of improvised and inventive ways of doing so.

"débrouiller" means exactly that, "disentangle". From there, we get "débrouillard", a
person who's able to scrape through, improvise, make do, etc.

Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
The Gigometer www.gigometer.com
The NYC Beer Guide www.nycbeer.org

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Christian Weisgerber skrev:

>> I was not surprised to discover that the Danish "hyggelig" was

> Does "hyggelig" have an etymological connection with English "hug"?

No, none whatsoever. ODS traces it back to some old
Danish/Swedish/Nordic words that have to do with "think", "mean".
They resemble the present word.

There is nothing in the concept of hygge that has to do with
hugging.

> Here is another German word English doesn't have: Stift.

We have the same word in Danish, but here it means the writing
part of a pencil or the like.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Whiskers skrev:

> Even if Scotland does secede from the UK, the term BrE will be neither
> more nor less useful than before.

But Dr. Nick is free to stop using it.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Robert Bannister]

On 17/09/2014 8:44 pm, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> Here is another German word English doesn't have: Stift.
>
> What's it mean? Well, a pin or a pen (for some meanings of the
> English words).
>
> So English does have words for it? Yes, but see, English doesn't
> have a _single_ word that covers both pins and pens. So the
> freestanding sentence
>
> Er hat einen Stift. -> He has a ___.
>
> is untranslatable.

And that is not even counting "das Stift", which oddly enough is what I
first thought of until I saw "einen" further down. Dictionaries seem to
translate it as "foundation" or "endowment", but from where it is most
used, I tend to think of it as a priory or some sort of home or school
for poor people.
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Robert Bannister]

On 17/09/2014 11:03 pm, Whiskers wrote:

> Not to mention the difficulty of determining exactly what constitutes "a
> word". English "police station" is German "Polizeistation"

Oddly enough, I have never come across that word. I am mainly familiar
with "Wache" or "Polizeirevier" (the latter is closer to AmE
"precinct"), but a quick check gives:

Polizeidienststelle; Polizeiwache; Wache; Polizeirevier; Revier;
Polizeiinspektion; Polizeiposten amongst others - all for "police
station" in various German speaking regions.

[Robert Bannister]

On 18/09/2014 2:09 am, David D S wrote:

> Well, I think the problem is that the restriction seems to be that the
> one word in one language should correspond with one word in the
> other, so your example would fail.
>
> However, the more I think of it, the more I think this is really a
> rather
> tricky concept (untranslatability) because it has been left too vague,
> and, as was pointed out, there are often many subtle differences
> between what at first glance seems to be a straighforward and
> direcr translation.
>
> Here's another example: long (龙) in Chinese is often translated
> into "dragon" in English, but the two beasts are so different in
> characteristics and features that they could hardly be said to be
> the same (mythical) animal. Does this make the two terms
> untranslatible between the two languages (meaning one word in
> one language maps onto one word in the other, with the same
> coverage and nothing extra)?
>

I would say that this problem does not exist solely between different
languages, but even amongst speakers of the same language. Language is
very much rooted in culture, so if the culture is different - even just
slightly - then the same word will have a different meaning in another
region. It may retain some of the meanings in all areas, but the central
meaning will vary.

We notice that in this group - in particular between British English and
American English, but I think we all remember that there are just as
many differences between the language of say our capital cities and that
of some other town in the same country a few hundred miles away - in
some cases, not even that far.

This is especially noticeable when it comes to the names of foodstuffs,
but it applies to a number of everyday objects: I doubt if the first
image that come into my mind when I read/hear "house" is the same as
your picture of a house or PTD's or RHDraney's or the Omrud's or
SteveH's or Cheryl's - we live in different places, and the normal
concept of "house" is different. We can still use "house" amongst each
other and know we mean a building to live in, but whether it is one, two
or more storeys high, whether it has a cellar, whether it is built of
brick, stone, adobe, wood or tin or something else - all these things
vary and affect our initial mental picture.

Of course, as always, context is everything.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Robert Bannister skrev:

> And that is not even counting "das Stift", which oddly enough is what I
> first thought of until I saw "einen" further down. Dictionaries seem to
> translate it as "foundation" or "endowment", but from where it is most
> used, I tend to think of it as a priory or some sort of home or school
> for poor people.

We have a similar word (and related words) in Danish. Both
explanations are correct. A home for poor people was made
possible through an endowment.

The danish verb "stifte", German "stiften", can also mean
"cause/do" or "lay the foundation for".

ODS (Wordbook of the Danish Language) compares the word to Old
English "stihtan, stihtian" which means "arrange" or "sort".

--
Bertel, Denmark

[David Kleinecke]

On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:
> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"

Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
"ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
name). "blue-eyed grass"?


I am still amused that Koch-Gruenburg once punted and
called one Amazonian animal "kleine tiger-katze"

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David Kleinecke wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:

> > "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>
> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
> name). "blue-eyed grass"?

I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
idea what it is.

Likewise "daffodil" and "jonquil," but I do know what that is.

[James Hogg]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David Kleinecke wrote:
>> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:
>
>>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>
>> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
>> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
>> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
>> name). "blue-eyed grass"?
>
> I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
> idea what it is.

They are just strange names for "whin".

--
James

[Steve Hayes]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:18:26 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David Kleinecke wrote:
>> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:
>
>> > "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>
>> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
>> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
>> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
>> name). "blue-eyed grass"?
>
>I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
>idea what it is.

Whins, of course.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

Oooh, according to PTD's logic I must have killfiled you, because I just said
the same thing.

[James Hogg]

Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:39:15 +0200, James Hogg
> <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David
>>> Kleinecke wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>>>
>>>> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
>>>> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
>>>> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
>>>> name). "blue-eyed grass"?
>>> I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
>>> idea what it is.
>> They are just strange names for "whin".
>
> Oooh, according to PTD's logic I must have killfiled you, because I
> just said the same thing.

Coward!

--
James

[R H Draney]

David Kleinecke filted:

Ocelot?...margay?...jaguarundi?...oncilla?...r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 5:38:57 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:39:15 +0200, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
> >Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> >> I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
> >> idea what it is.
> >They are just strange names for "whin".
>
> Oooh, according to PTD's logic I must have killfiled you, because I just said
> the same thing.

So now you've got Funk disease. Though it is odd that you didn't look
at the one message after mine (posted 4 hr before yours) in the thread
before responding.

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 04:44:24 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Thursday, September 18, 2014 5:38:57 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:39:15 +0200, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>> >Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> >> I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
>> >> idea what it is.
>> >They are just strange names for "whin".
>>
>> Oooh, according to PTD's logic I must have killfiled you, because I just said
>> the same thing.
>
>So now you've got Funk disease.

James Hogg says I'm a coward, and now this!

It must be a Blue Funk!

> Though it is odd that you didn't look
>at the one message after mine (posted 4 hr before yours) in the thread
>before responding.

Sorry, you've lost me there. I've no idea which messages you are referring to.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 8:08:15 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 04:44:24 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >On Thursday, September 18, 2014 5:38:57 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
> >> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:39:15 +0200, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
> >> >Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> >> >> I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
> >> >> idea what it is.
> >> >They are just strange names for "whin".
> >> Oooh, according to PTD's logic I must have killfiled you, because I just
> >> said the same thing.
> >So now you've got Funk disease.
>
> James Hogg says I'm a coward, and now this!
>
> It must be a Blue Funk!
>
> > Though it is odd that you didn't look
> >at the one message after mine (posted 4 hr before yours) in the thread
> >before responding.
>
> Sorry, you've lost me there. I've no idea which messages you are referring to.

The one you went out of your way to point out you'd duplicated, and
the one you and it were responding to.

Golly?

I have, however, never heard of "whin."

[James Hogg]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> I have, however, never heard of "whin."

To Whinny-Moor thou com'st at last,
And Christe receive thy saule.

--
James

[James Silverton]

The adjacent part is more explicit about whins:

If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
The whinns sall prick thee to the bare bane.


--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[Whiskers]

I can see how "pin" and "pen" can relate to the same thing - ultimately
derived from the classical Latin for "feather". The shaft of a large
flight feather might well serve both as a writing instrument and as a
fastener of clothing. But unless the German "Stift" somehow relates to
feathers or to something else that might be used as a writing instrument
and as a fastener, such as a reed or twig or large thorn, the connection
eludes me.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Lewis skrev:

> Thoughts that are difficult to express in the language you have are
> thoughts it is difficult to have. Thoughts that cannot be expressed in
> your language are thoughts you *cannot* have.

It depends on the definition of thoughts. Are imaginary pictures
and picture sequences thoughts?

> The example of familial relationship words is a good one,
> because the relationships are much more complicated and in
> most cases much more binding.

> I don't know Turkish, but the fact that 'father's brother' is different
> from 'mother's brother' probably means that the father's brother is
> something along the lines of a secondary father rather than what we
> think of as an uncle (a fun guy you see every now and again who brings
> slightly inappropriate gifts, or the creepy unmarried guy you don't
> leave alone with the kids, or a close family friend who is unrelated).

I doubt it. Ilive in a country where we have specific words for
such members. The system is easy to catch if you know that

mor = mother (old: moder)
far = father (old: fader)
bror = brother (old: broder)
s�ster = sister
s�n = son
datter = daughter
(notice how close they all are to English)
barn = child

mormor, farmor, morfar, farfar

faster (father's sister), moster, farbror, morbror

s�nnes�n, s�nnedatter, datters�n, datterdatter

The last four are only used if it is important to inform of the
precise linking. "Barnebarn" is the general designation for a
grandchild.

There is no element of closeness in for example "farbror". It
just reminds us which kind of family link he has. If such a
designation by someone is seen as especially nice and comforting,
it's because the person behind it has those qualities.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 06:06:35 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"

<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Thursday, September 18, 2014 8:08:15 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 04:44:24 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >On Thursday, September 18, 2014 5:38:57 AM UTC-4, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:39:15 +0200, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> >> >> I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
>> >> >> idea what it is.
>> >> >They are just strange names for "whin".
>> >> Oooh, according to PTD's logic I must have killfiled you, because I just
>> >> said the same thing.
>> >So now you've got Funk disease.
>>
>> James Hogg says I'm a coward, and now this!
>>
>> It must be a Blue Funk!
>>
>> > Though it is odd that you didn't look
>> >at the one message after mine (posted 4 hr before yours) in the thread
>> >before responding.
>>
>> Sorry, you've lost me there. I've no idea which messages you are referring to.
>
>The one you went out of your way to point out you'd duplicated, and
>the one you and it were responding to.

The mind boggles even more.

It's a bit like saying that, having read up to page 50 in a book, I should
read page 52 before reading page 51 -- that would be far odder that neading
things when you come to them.

>
>Golly?
>
>I have, however, never heard of "whin."

[M Winther]

Why can't the words "mormor, farmor, morfar, farfar" be used in English?
Today, it's confusing that 'granny' can mean either mormor or farmor.

/Mats


"Bertel Lund Hansen" <kanon...@lundhansen.dk> skrev i meddelandet
news:lvevln$7c6$1...@dont-email.me...

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

M Winther skrev:

> Why can't the words "mormor, farmor, morfar, farfar" be used in English?

They could easily. So could the other words.

> Today, it's confusing that 'granny' can mean either mormor or farmor.

Accidentally I used to know a woman (A) whose sister had moved to
USA as a young woman. A was known to her American family as
Moster [firstname]. The English pronunciation is almost exactly
like the Danish one.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Dr Nick]

And that's the truth.

[Mike L]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 01:08:10 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
<kanon...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

>Whiskers skrev:
>
>> Even if Scotland does secede from the UK, the term BrE will be neither
>> more nor less useful than before.
>
>But Dr. Nick is free to stop using it.

I await his substitute with interest.

--
Mike.

[Mike L]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 06:06:35 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

[...]

>
>I have, however, never heard of "whin."

That's very un-hands-across-the-sea of you. I for one have heard of
sagebrush, chokecherry, poison ivy, butternut, California lilac,
sassafras, cottonwood, scuppernong, and quamash. Among other
representatives of your glorious native flora.

--
Mike.

[Mike L]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 11:37:52 +0200, Steve Hayes
<haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

>On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:18:26 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
><gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David Kleinecke wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:
>>
>>> > "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>>
>>> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
>>> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
>>> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
>>> name). "blue-eyed grass"?

Ceanothus is aka "California lilac".

>>
>>I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
>>idea what it is.
>
>Whins, of course.

And wuzzy.

--
Mike.

[James Silverton]

You are ahead of me; I could not recognize California lilac or quamash.

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-17, Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:

> And that is not even counting "das Stift", which oddly enough is what I
> first thought of until I saw "einen" further down. Dictionaries seem to
> translate it as "foundation" or "endowment", but from where it is most
> used, I tend to think of it as a priory or some sort of home or school
> for poor people.

Yes.
I don't think it's part of my active vocabulary. I pretty much only
encounter it as a component in names.

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Stift_Einrichtung_Koerperschaft

1. a. (Christian church) religious entity with an endowment
(usually land holdings)
b. church institution [as a place for theological-philosophical
education] headed by members of (1a)
c. buildings that belong to (1a)
d. (Austrian) [large] monastery

2. a. (obsolescent) denominational private school for girls, supported
by a nonprofit/private foundation
b. (obsolescent) retirement home funded by a nonprofit/private
foundation

Somebody whose English, or in fact German, is better than mine may
improve on these translations, but you get the idea.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-18, Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> wrote:

> I can see how "pin" and "pen" can relate to the same thing - ultimately
> derived from the classical Latin for "feather".

It's much simpler: by shape. A "Stift" (masc.) is a thin, elongated
thingy.

If it's thin enough to prick you, it's a "Nadel" (fem.), cognate
with English "needle", which in German does not only refer to sewing
needles but also to various types of pins, including by extension
those bent into other shapes like safety pins and hair pins.

So again, we have a chain of overlapping semantic fields:

pen pin needle
\ / \ /
Stift Nadel

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-18, David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>
> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but

German: "Puma"

> "ring-tailed cat"?

"Nordamerikanisches Katzenfrett"

> "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local name).

"Säckelblumen"

> "blue-eyed grass"?

"Grasschwertel" (now that sent me googling!)

If it has a non-local English name, it's likely to have a German
one. Wikipedia's interlanguage links are a handy resource if you
are looking for the common names of taxons in other languages.

> I am still amused that Koch-Gruenburg once punted and
> called one Amazonian animal "kleine tiger-katze"

Which was likely a better choice for his readership than whatever
obscure formal name could be dredged up for the critter in question.

[David Kleinecke]

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 3:06:12 AM UTC-7, R H Draney wrote:
> David Kleinecke filted:

>
> >I am still amused that Koch-Gruenburg once punted and
> >called one Amazonian animal "kleine tiger-katze"
>
> Ocelot?...margay?...jaguarundi?...oncilla?...r

GOK

[Robert Bannister]

On 19/09/2014 5:50 am, James Silverton wrote:
> On 9/18/2014 5:27 PM, Mike L wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 06:06:35 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>>
>>> I have, however, never heard of "whin."
>>
>> That's very un-hands-across-the-sea of you. I for one have heard of
>> sagebrush, chokecherry, poison ivy, butternut, California lilac,
>> sassafras, cottonwood, scuppernong, and quamash. Among other
>> representatives of your glorious native flora.
>>
> You are ahead of me; I could not recognize California lilac or quamash.
>

On the other hand, he didn't say he could recognise any of those plants
- only that he had heard of them. Apart from scuppernong, I have read
them too without having much idea of what most of them are.

--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Whiskers]

I think I could learn to like these semantic fields. They must be
multi-dimensional though, so easy places to get lost in. (Or is that
what the chain is for?).

[David Kleinecke]

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:00:10 PM UTC-7, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2014-09-18, David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am still amused that Koch-Gruenburg once punted and
> > called one Amazonian animal "kleine tiger-katze"
>
> Which was likely a better choice for his readership than whatever

> formal name could be dredged up for the critter in question.

Much, if not all, pre-war (WW I) European linguistic work
in South America was done by naturalist as collateral to
their true mission- biology. In Martius' book all the animals
are carefully given the full binomial names. Koch-Gruenburg
two generations later was much more of a linguist than his
predecessors but modern linguistics had to wait for the
arrival of the missionaries (SIL).

[Whiskers]

Modern kinship networks are a lot more complex than that; serial
marriages, and extra-marital reproduction, and same-sex cohabitation,
and adoption and fostering and IVF and so on, makes for some very
confusing explanations. "Well, his Daddy and his Daddy's boyfriend's
sister's daughter, went to the picnic with me and my Mum's old
girlfriend's son by her first surrogate Dad, so it worked out OK in the
end".

[Jack Campin]

>>> I have, however, never heard of "whin."
>> That's very un-hands-across-the-sea of you. I for one have heard of
>> sagebrush, chokecherry, poison ivy, butternut, California lilac,
>> sassafras, cottonwood, scuppernong, and quamash. Among other
>> representatives of your glorious native flora.
> You are ahead of me; I could not recognize California lilac or quamash.

I've not only heard of California lilac, I've got one in the garden.
They look pretty and smell rather unpleasant.

But I couldn't have told a quamash from a quahog.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Jack Campin]

>> A literal translation of Turkish "amca" (not just "uncle", but
>> father's brother in particular) would miss a lot of connotations
>> the word has.

> I don't know Turkish, but the fact that 'father's brother' is different
> from 'mother's brother' probably means that the father's brother is
> something along the lines of a secondary father rather than what we
> think of as an uncle (a fun guy you see every now and again who brings
> slightly inappropriate gifts, or the creepy unmarried guy you don't
> leave alone with the kids, or a close family friend who is unrelated).

Traditionally much of Turkish society has been exogamous: the bride goes
to live with her husband's family, often in another village. So you'd
have much more interaction with your father's brother than with your
other uncle.

Sometimes a kinship word will imply sexual taboos (like "first cousin"
in US English) or hereditary property rights. When you label somebody
with one of those words you aren't just giving a neutral description
of where they are in your family network, you're saying what they must
or can't do in relation to you.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Hey, I've heard of both furze and gorse!

I've read about many items in your list, but the only ones I've
actually seen are sassafras (in the local woods) and cottonwood
(which fills some of the Near North streets of Chicago with its
fluff each season), and allegedly poison ivy.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 7:23:07 PM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:

> Modern kinship networks are a lot more complex than that; serial
> marriages, and extra-marital reproduction, and same-sex cohabitation,
> and adoption and fostering and IVF and so on, makes for some very
> confusing explanations. "Well, his Daddy and his Daddy's boyfriend's
> sister's daughter,

You mean his cousin

> went to the picnic with me and my Mum's old
> girlfriend's son by her first surrogate Dad, so it worked out OK in the
> end".

What's a "surrogate Dad"?

And "girlfriend" is ambiguous.

[CDB]

On 18/09/2014 5:17 PM, Mike L wrote:
> Bertel Lund Hansen <kanon...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>> Whiskers skrev:

>>> Even if Scotland does secede from the UK, the term BrE will be
>>> neither more nor less useful than before.

>> But Dr. Nick is free to stop using it.

> I await his substitute with interest.

There'd still be a UK.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 5:19:01 PM UTC-4, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2014-09-18, Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> wrote:

> > I can see how "pin" and "pen" can relate to the same thing - ultimately
> > derived from the classical Latin for "feather".
>
> It's much simpler: by shape. A "Stift" (masc.) is a thin, elongated
> thingy.
> If it's thin enough to prick you, it's a "Nadel" (fem.), cognate
> with English "needle", which in German does not only refer to sewing
> needles but also to various types of pins, including by extension

What about pine needles?

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Whiskers skrev:

>> Accidentally I used to know a woman (A) whose sister had moved to
>> USA as a young woman. A was known to her American family as
>> Moster [firstname]. The English pronunciation is almost exactly
>> like the Danish one.

> Modern kinship networks are a lot more complex than that; serial
> marriages, and extra-marital reproduction, and same-sex cohabitation,
> and adoption and fostering and IVF and so on, makes for some very
> confusing explanations.

True. All non-blood-related family links are called "pap-" in
Danish: papfar, papmor, paps�n ...

"Pap" means "cardboard", and the underlying logic is that a
permission or a certificate is printet on a piece of cardboard.

Some Danes have begun using "bonus-" instead, but I like the pap
notion.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Dr Nick]

Luckily you don't have to.

[Dr Nick]

So've I, but I'd never have produced a wonderful list like that to
order.

To be honest I've only ever heard of whin as a synonym for furze, which
I've only ever heard of as a synonym for gorse, which is what I, and all
I know, call it.

[Peter Moylan]

From my reading I know that a gorse bush is like a ham bush in that it
leaps out and attacks you. I wouldn't know how to recognise one, though.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

[LFS]

<giggle> Had to read that twice. May I suggest that you read more widely
than Winnie the Pooh, though?

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

[Guy Barry]

"Mike L" wrote in message
news:8uim1a5o36k9nph5c...@4ax.com...

Looks as though you'll have to wait a rather long time.

--
Guy Barry

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

The United Arab Republic was only united for about three years, but
Egypt continued calling itself that for another ten years after Syria
seceded, so on that basis we could expect the UK to continue calling
itself the UK for another 1000 years or so if Scotland had voted YES.


--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

+1

The only place I've come across furze is in articles that describe it
as synonymous with gorse. Gorse, on the other hand, was everywhere
WIWAL.


--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Lots of green spikes and yellow flowers. Not good for trying to climb through.


--
athel

[Steve Hayes]

Sperm donor? Or donee?


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Adam Funk]

But does eating gorse make you furze?


--
A lot of people never use their intiative because no-one
told them to. --- Banksy

[Peter Moylan]

I've read many books, and I can't recall seeing gorse mentioned anywhere
except that one. Perhaps it was, and I did my usual trick of skipping
lightly past words I only half-understand.

Now I've noticed that I've just used "in that" spontaneously, where
"because" would have been an inferior choice. Unfortunately, I've
forgotten where that question arose.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, September 19, 2014 3:33:13 AM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:

> From my reading I know that a gorse bush is like a ham bush in that it
> leaps out and attacks you. I wouldn't know how to recognise one, though.

Big round body, short legs, snout, corkscrew tail?

[Jerry Friedman]

On 9/18/14 3:29 PM, Mike L wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 11:37:52 +0200, Steve Hayes
> <haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:18:26 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David Kleinecke wrote:

>>>> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:
>>>
>>>>> "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>>>
>>>> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
>>>> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but

>>>> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
>>>> name). "blue-eyed grass"?
>
> Ceanothus is aka "California lilac".
...

Some species are. A little farther east they seem to have such names as
buckbrush and deerbrush. (I'm afraid I call the local one "ceanothus".)
The first one encountered by English speakers may have been New Jersey
tea.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Katy Jennison]

On 19/09/2014 08:33, Peter Moylan wrote:

It's a spiky bush with yellow flowers. So are lots of other plants, so
to be sure that it's gorse you have to keep an eye on it. If you've
watched it for a year and it's had flowers on it throughout this time,
it's gorse. If not, not.

--
Katy Jennison

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2014-09-19, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>> It's much simpler: by shape. A "Stift" (masc.) is a thin, elongated
>> thingy.
>> If it's thin enough to prick you, it's a "Nadel" (fem.), cognate
>> with English "needle", which in German does not only refer to sewing
>> needles but also to various types of pins, including by extension
>
> What about pine needles?

Also "Nadel".

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Oliver Cromm]

* M Winther:

> "Bertel Lund Hansen" <kanon...@lundhansen.dk> skrev i meddelandet
> news:lvevln$7c6$1...@dont-email.me...

>> I doubt it. Ilive in a country where we have specific words for
>> such members. The system is easy to catch if you know that
>>
>> mor = mother (old: moder)
>> far = father (old: fader)
>> bror = brother (old: broder)
>> s嚙編ter = sister
>> s嚙緯 = son
>> datter = daughter
>> (notice how close they all are to English)
>> barn = child
>>
>> mormor, farmor, morfar, farfar
>>
>> faster (father's sister), moster, farbror, morbror
>>
>> s嚙緯nes嚙緯, s嚙緯nedatter, datters嚙緯, datterdatter
>>
>> The last four are only used if it is important to inform of the
>> precise linking. "Barnebarn" is the general designation for a
>> grandchild.

(Reordered to usual convention)

> Why can't the words "mormor, farmor, morfar, farfar" be used in English?

> Today, it's confusing that 'granny' can mean either mormor or farmor.

Most families I know make up different names for the various
grannies, but they are usually not informative for outsiders.

The introduction of the handy Danish terms might come late,
anyway, as we enter an age where many people have three or more
grannies, which can't be identified so easily. "Stedfarstedmor"
(my attempt at "stepfather's stepmother") isn't all that handy.

--
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is
to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies.
And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no
obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
-- C.嚙璀.嚙磋. Hoare

[Oliver Cromm]

* Bertel Lund Hansen:

As for "all" above: the most important non-blood-related family
link is that of husband and wife, I assume you don't habitually
add "pap" there (and to all the in-laws).

--
Software is getting slower
more rapidly than hardware becomes faster
--Wirth's law

[Charles Bishop]

In article <c82c5i...@mid.individual.net>,

Are there any bushes that one can climb? Not in my AmE and experience.
Bushes are short, and well, bushy with thin branches that wouldn't
support a kid's weight. You might climb inside one, to hide, but not
climb for height.

--
charles

[Charles Bishop]

In article <slrnm1p30c....@amelia.local>,
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

> Okay, so one time? In band camp? Charles Bishop <ctbi...@earthlink.net> was
> all, like:

> I would not think "climb through" implied climbing for height, but
> rather trying to get through, like a hedge.

Sorry, I read "through" as "though", resulting in "Not good for trying
to climb, though."

c

[Mike L]

Not unlikely. But, Chuck, there wouldn't still be a UK, as Scotland is
the only other kingdom involved. Hasty arrangements to raise the
Principality to Kingdom status and to revive the Kingdom of Ulster
would do the trick; but I don't think the punters would buy it.

--
Mike.

[Anders D. Nygaard]

On 19-09-2014 07:41, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Whiskers skrev:

>
>> Modern kinship networks are a lot more complex than that; serial
>> marriages, and extra-marital reproduction, and same-sex cohabitation,
>> and adoption and fostering and IVF and so on, makes for some very
>> confusing explanations.
>
> True. All non-blood-related family links are called "pap-" in
> Danish: papfar, papmor, paps�n ...

Or more classically "sted-" meaning "in place of".

/Anders, Denmark

[Anders D. Nygaard]

On 18-09-2014 18:02, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> [snip] Ilive in a country where we have specific words for

> such members. The system is easy to catch if you know that
>
> mor = mother (old: moder)
> far = father (old: fader)
> bror = brother (old: broder)

> s�ster = sister
> s�n = son

> datter = daughter
> (notice how close they all are to English)
> barn = child
>
> mormor, farmor, morfar, farfar
>
> faster (father's sister), moster, farbror, morbror
>

> s�nnes�n, s�nnedatter, datters�n, datterdatter

My wife's family even used "farmoster".

> The last four are only used if it is important to inform of the
> precise linking. "Barnebarn" is the general designation for a
> grandchild.

In my experience, "farbror" and "morbror" are somewhat clunky
and rare; much more common is "onkel" (uncle). "Tante" (aunt)
is also in use, as are "bedstemor" and "bedstefar" (grandparents).

But the precise usage patterns are probably very much a matter
of family tradition.

/Anders, Denmark

[Mike L]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2014 20:03:24 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>Okay, so one time? In band camp? Charles Bishop <ctbi...@earthlink.net> was all, like:

>I would not think "climb through" implied climbing for height, but
>rather trying to get through, like a hedge.

In certain situations they will grow to some six feet. I've been
through a big stand of them (in Northern Ireland, perhaps? Can't
remember) unscathed. What happens, as with forestry, is that
closely-planted groups compete for light, so you end up with tall
straight bare trunks. The needly leaves are cruel when fresh, but
decay rather quickly into a carpet of fairly soft things. The flowers,
which appear on and off all the year round, smell of coconut.

--
Mike.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, September 19, 2014 5:33:19 PM UTC-4, Mike L wrote:

> Not unlikely. But, Chuck, there wouldn't still be a UK, as Scotland is
> the only other kingdom involved. Hasty arrangements to raise the
> Principality to Kingdom status and to revive the Kingdom of Ulster
> would do the trick; but I don't think the punters would buy it.

But it's not the United Kingdoms.

[Anders D. Nygaard]

On 19-09-2014 19:48, Oliver Cromm wrote:
> * Bertel Lund Hansen:

>> True. All non-blood-related family links are called "pap-" in
>> Danish: papfar, papmor, paps�n ...
>

> As for "all" above: the most important non-blood-related family
> link is that of husband and wife, I assume you don't habitually
> add "pap" there

Correct.

> (and to all the in-laws).

Also correct. That would be "sviger-".

/Anders, Denmark.

[Mike L]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:14:40 +0100, Dr Nick
<nosp...@temporary-address.org.uk> wrote:

>Mike L <n...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 06:06:35 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>>
>>>I have, however, never heard of "whin."
>>
>> That's very un-hands-across-the-sea of you. I for one have heard of
>> sagebrush, chokecherry, poison ivy, butternut, California lilac,
>> sassafras, cottonwood, scuppernong, and quamash. Among other
>> representatives of your glorious native flora.
>
>So've I, but I'd never have produced a wonderful list like that to
>order.

American words are as riddled with poetry as any others, but, being
slightly foreign, they come to our ears with a romantic freshness.

>
>To be honest I've only ever heard of whin as a synonym for furze, which
>I've only ever heard of as a synonym for gorse, which is what I, and all
>I know, call it.

--
Mike.

[Oliver Cromm]

* Steve Hayes:

> On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:18:26 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:26:08 PM UTC-4, David Kleinecke wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:40:59 PM UTC-7, M Winther wrote:
>>
>>> > "Untranslatable Words From Around The World"
>>>
>>> Ridiculous. Just mention any kind of lesser known flora or
>>> fauna. People could probably translate "mountain lion" but
>>> "ring-tailed cat"? "Ceanothus"? (we don't even have a local
>>> name). "blue-eyed grass"?
>>

>>I know that "furze" and "gorse" are the same thing but have no
>>idea what it is.
>
> Whins, of course.

You lhost me.

--
Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated
until sometime after those creating it have left the organization.

[Mike L]

<Hits mental 'Save'.> Thanks. I've got an Oregon grape in the garden,
but no Osage orange or Oswego tea.

--
Mike.