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.
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.
Solamente, it just flows so well. It means only in Spanish.
I’ve always liked the word Adenosine. Not sure why, just fun to say.
I love the word helicopter, because unobviously, the root words aren’t heli and copter, but are “helico”, meaning spiral, and “pter”, meaning wing.
Waffle not the food just the word. It’s fun to say.
There are plenty of feminine given names that roll off the tongue incredibly well. Names like “Anna” and “Elaine” and “Katherine” do not begin to scratch the surface… But again, I pay more attention to names than the average person because I am obsessed with linguistics, and that obsession is what made me click this thread and type out a reply in the first place.
I knew a girl with such a cute name but she was not very good looking so guys used to say “name scam”
My favorite word is cunt.
I love the word trabajaba (pronounced trah-buh-hah-buh). It means “worked” in Spanish.
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.”);
The Trinity of Doo: doobie, doofus, doodle.
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.
Vegemíté, as pronounced by Gloria in Modern Family.
Every time I open the cupboard that has a jar, it brings me joy.
It’s good shit. I ain’t even an Aussie but that shit makes everything better.
No way, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t grow up with Vegemite but still enjoys it.
Thing with Vegemíté is that it’s like Marmite, but not fucking awful.
I like Marmite too lol
Anesthetize
The ‘esth’ right into a t is just about the coolest combination of word sounds in any word in English.
Second favorite is cwm. :)
As someone with a lisp who tends to turn ‘s’ and ‘z’ sounds into a ‘th’ sound, i will respectfully disagree that it is a cool combination. it hurts me a little that i can’t always say words properly but i suppose i could always ask a doctor to aneththetithe me.
Fuck
The Swiss army knife of English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpV8D8K9JI
Steadfast. As a native English speaker it feels like a very strong, grounded word which also suits its meaning. Originally literally means fixed in place, it’s come to mean loyal and unswerving.
Stalwart Stolid Solid
