Natural Words

Alright. All these words you're about to learn about all relate to nature and plants. Have fun. 

Ramose is a relatively common word. I've heard of it before, so it's not too weird, but I am really glad this words exists. It simply means "Consisting of, or having, branches." Now, you're probably immediately thinking of a tree, and so did I. But after doing some research, I found that it meant something more along the lines of Branchy Sponges or Corals.

It comes from Latin, as many of the words on this blog do. Ramosus "branched" can also be found in words like Ramify, meaning to form branches.

Pomaceous is a really interesting word and I'm so glad I found it. It means "of, or relating to, apples" like who would have thought such a word existed?

It comes, yet again, from the Latin language. Pomum means Apple. You may have heard of pears being referred to as part of the Pome family, which is not wrong. Recently, the word has taken the meaning of something that is shaped like a pear.

It was created by an American, actually. That's so rare on this blog! Edward Baynard was a physician, of all professions. He claimed "apples and pomaceous juices, are the greatest pectorals."

And now, what is my favorite word of this blog? Personally I like the word nosegay. There's so many things it could mean, so I'm sure you couldn't just guess. So I'll tell you.

A nosegay is actually a small bunch of flowers! This word also originated in English, but not America. Back in the 1400's, nose still meant what it means today. But gay did not mean what it means today, or even what it meant in the 19th century. Back then, instead of meaning happy, gay meant decorated and ornamented. So a nosegay is representational of a decorated nose! How fun!

So go! Use your newfound knowledge of natural words! Pick a nose...gay... Eat some pomaceous fruit!

Garden Path Sentences

I don't know if you've ever heard of garden path sentences, but they're my new favorite kind of sentence. Much like a garden path, winding through the eurytopic plants and scenery, these sentences take twists and turns before they reach their main point. Let's look at a few examples, shall we?

Groucho Marx was an iconic user of garden path sentences. One of my favorites:

"Outside of a dog, books are a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

Marx takes the famous saying that dogs are a man's best friend and makes the phrase "Outside of a..." a bit more literal. Because hey, it's true. It is pretty dark inside dogs...

Other ones of my favorites:

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

The first sentence takes Fly to be a verb and Like to be a comparing word. But in the second sentence, Fly is a noun, followed by the verb Like.

"The old man the boat."

This one took you a bit longer to figure out, didn't it... It's most often that Man is meant as a noun. Not a verb. But if you rearrange th sentence, it becomes more understandable: The boat is manned by the old.

And one final one, that still takes me a few seconds to remember how it works:

"The mouse the cat the dog chased killed ate he cheese."

 That's wayyyy too wrong, isn't it? There's no way that can be a sentence! Ah, but it is.

Take it like a math problem:

The mouse [that the cat (who the dog chased) killed] ate the cheese.

Garden Path Sentences. Aren't they cool?!

Grawlixes

Grawlix

Grawlix (And some other related words)

I bet you're really wondering what a grawlix is, right?

First, what my family thought:

Mom: A Combination of a Colon and Semicolon

Jessie: A mixture of Red, Brown, and White

Papa: A tool used for punching holes in a canvas cloth

Well, they were wrong.

A Grawlix is actually the symbols in a comic that replace a cursing word. For example, some four-lettered word beginning with an F that I prefer not to say would become $@#%.

Grawlix. I could see this happening.

The term Grawlix came around in 1980, and the book, The Lexicon of Comicana. This short book was written by Mort Walker, creator of the Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois.  Walker defines words that he made up and made popular, like solrads, lines that emanate from light sources.  Many of the words he created even appear in dictionaries, but not doozex. 

(Don't look that one up.  Just... don't...)

Dites, Hites, and Vites. They all sound similar, and they are all somewhat related. By the way, they were also created by Mort Walker.

Dites: Diagonal Lines across a reflective surface

Hites: Lines used very commonly in comics, showing a line of motion, as if after a fist punching someone, or just someone running.

Vites: Nevermind. Vites and Dites are the same thing.

See, so Mort Walker was actually a pretty influential comic-writer, at least for people who do blog posts on weird words...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexicon_of_Comicana

Semantic Satiation

Mom actually took apart the word and said,  "Feeling complete with the words you chose, feeling like you chose the right words"

Jessie said, "Helping to be satisfied."

Dad:  "Being overloaded with language and words." 

Kevin, who I actually called to ask: "A Satisfied Jewish Person"

My cousin, who overheard Kevin: "Having your reason fully satisfied."

They were pretty close. Kind of.

Semantic Satiation is actually when you say a word so many times, that it starts to lose its meaning. So, in the last post, when I said that you really really really really really couldn't wait for this phrase, I was actually giving you a clue.

                                           

Semantic Satiation was coined in 1962 by American (And Probably Polish) Leon Jakobovits James.  He used the phrase in his doctoral dissertation, and is now the "commonly" used phrase. Before 1962, the term "Verbal Satiation" was the norm. My favorite phrase that was used is "Refractory Phase and Mental Fatigue".  Yeah.

I'm pretty sure this phrase can also be used for spelling out a word. I always thought that Book was one of those words. You just say it, and it seems fine.  Then you go to spell it, and you're like, "How does B-O-O-K make that sound, when B-O-O makes a completely different sound?" At least I think that.

Semantic Satiation has actually been used in beneficial purposes, too.  People that stutter, or have a hard time saying words, even people that can't make a certain sound, use Semantic Satiation, because it gets them used to saying the word.  So, in the example above, if someone could not say their "S" sound, they may find it difficult to say "Bicycle", unless they say it a lot of times. Their mouth eventually gets use to the sound, and makes that tongue formation almost every time.  People that stutter have the same problem.

Untranslatable Words, part 2

Alrighty, here we go. More untranslatable words. They're a lot of fun to research and read about.

These are, more specifically, words that a lot of people can relate to, like Utepils, Pretoogjes, Koyaanisqati, and Pana Po'o.

Utepils: (Norwegian)
Finally, another word that will someday pertain to me. Possibly even this summer in Germany... I'm sure most adults have had utepils at least once in their lives, certainly more for a lot of people.
This Norwegian word is a compound word, coming from "Ute-," meaning Outside and "Pils." Pils is actually just short for Pilsner, a common beer in Norway. So while this word literally means "Beer Outside," the common meaning behind utepils has become something along the lines of "Drinking a cold beer outside on a hot day." So have fun this summer, and have your utepils!

Pretoogjes: (Dutch)
Alright. Raise your hand if you were a mischievous child. (See, now I have to type with one hand raised...) Okay, now squint your eyes if you know what this word means...
Pretoogjes is a great word which I now adore. Whenever kids start plotting something, they start chuckling, and they get a squint and a glint in their eyes. These squinting/glinting eyes are what Pretoogjes are.
Luckily, it's almost a direct translation. In Dutch, what we call Eyes are known as Oogjes. And how we would say Fun, Dutch would say that it is Pret. Pret + Oogjes = Pretoogjes, also known as Fun Eyes

Koyaanisqatsi: (Hopi)
I've never done a Native American word on this blog before, so this is a first! Hmm. Maybe I should change that by experiencing a Koyaanisqatsi...
Simply put, Koyaanisqatsi is the Hopi word for an English phrase that is felt much too often by teenagers. It represents a state of life that pleads for another way of living.
Other words similar to it include:
Powaqqatsi- Life in Transition, Parasitic way of life
Nagoyqatsi- Life as War, Culturized Violence, or even "A life of killing each other."

Notice anything about those words? They all contain the letters "-Qatsi," which means Life in the Hopi Language. These three words are all part of a symphonic movie trilogy about the destruction of people, germs, and life in industrial counties.

Pana Po'o: (Hawaiian)
Everyone definitely has felt this one. You walk into a room, and you forget why you went in. So you start scratching your head to try and rattle your brain. Thanks to Hawaii, we have a word for that!
Pana Po'o means, literally, "To Snap/Tap (Pana) the Head (Po'o)", although it has taken the connotation of "Trying to remember what you went in to a room for."

Who knows what I'll do next week. I may do more untranslatable words. I dunno.

Lost in Translation, part 1

Some of the best words, in my opinion, are the ones that come from different languages. Every language has words that don't translate to other languages. One example, to give you an idea, is this phrase from the French: L'espirit d'escalier, which doesn't make any sense when translated literally. The Spirit of the Staircase really doesn't make sense to English-speakers.  But if you translate the meaning, it is When you come up with the perfect comeback after the conversation is already over.

Tingo- Pascuense

So, something I never really realized until I researched this word is that there is an official language on Easter Island (Rapa Nui), and it's called Pascuense. And it's actually a really interesting language. 

Anyway, Tingo comes from this Pascuense language and has one of the most obscure, exact definitions I have ever seen. Tingo is a term used to describe "stealing from your neighbor by borrowing items from them and never returning them, until they have nothing left."

You'd figure that it wouldn't happen very often, but it must happen enough to make it into a singular word...

Tsundoku- Japanese

You're guilty of it. I'm guilty of it. Most people have committed this act in the past year. Some even in the past month, or even week.

Tsundoku is a term that is "buying lots and lots of books, but leaving them to pile up without ever being read." You know it's happened to you. Funnily enough, this word is actually just a pun. It comes from the term Tsunde Oku, which means To Pile Up, but around 1900, the term took a turn. People started writing it as Tsunde Doku. Doku means To Read in Japanese, so after Tsunde Doku became too difficult to say, the term was shortened to Tsundoku.

Rire Dans sa Barbe- French

So have you ever experienced a time when you think of a joke? A really funny joke. But you don't want to tell anyone because it's a joke intended for teenagers but you're around 85 year-olds, so you can't help laughing at it. But then they ask you what you're laughing at and so you say that it was just something you thought of.

That's where Rire Dans sa Barbe comes in to save the day. Literally meaning Laughing In The Beard, this phrase describes exactly what it means. But, unlike English, the French have a simple phrase for it. It's used to describe not just a giggle, but when you think of something funny, but you can't share it with others, so you laugh to yourself.

Try as I might, I couldn't find an English word that was untranslatable. Except for a few slang words, like Googly, or Sleazy.

The one word that I could find that has no single-word equivilent is Jaywalk.

In Indonesian, the phrase Jaywalk can only be translated as menyeberang jalan dgn tdk memperhatikan lalu lintas. It's a really long phrase that literally translates to To Cross the Way with Ill Notice.

Part 2 next week.

Gardyloo, Gobemouche

Do you know how wonderful G-words are? They're good. Great. Grandiloquent. Think about it: If it weren't for the letter G, we wouldn't have such great words as Gardyloo! and Gobemouche!


Gardyloo!:
Ma: Creole expression that you say whenever you have to go to the bathroom
Pa: Scottish greeting for one's mother-in-law
Jess: What you say when a girl's dress flies up in the wind
Kev: Expression for surprise after sitting on a bagpipe

Gardyloo! It could very well be one of those expressions. Really, if you combine Mom and Dad's answers, you get pretty close.
Gardyloo! is something that Scots used to yell when dumping a wash bowl or bucket of toilet-related matter out of windows and into the streets. Hopefully, there is no longer any use for this exclamation, because I sincerely hope that nobody is still throwing their toilet stuff into pathways.
The term Gardyloo! comes from French, but then adopted by the Scottish. Here's the legend:
King Philippe II, who ruled from 1180 to 1223, was apparently walking through the streets of a plebeian town, when he was doused. By a bucket. Full of bathroom liquids. And that kind of annoyed him. But he was cool about it. Instead of banishing the poor peasant, the King suggested that they start yelling "Watch out for the water!" before they toss. Guess what "Watch out for the Water!" is in French. "Garde à l'eau!"
So how might we bring back this expression? Nobody is using it for what it used to mean, of course. I propose that we say Gardyloo! before we say something that is a complete lie or sarcasm, rather, before we spew a load of bullshit out of our mouths.

Gobemouche:
Ma: French term for an ugly face that your mom always says "Don't make an ugly face or it will stick that way!"
Pa: When you don't put the wood in the fireplace properly. Or a chauffeur
Jess: A person that is in charge of collecting tickets at a movie theater
Kev: The type of asshole who parks across two parking spaces

****Move this paragraph to the end.****

I'd like to actually start by saying this, because I am thinking about it right now. I'll probably edit this to move it to the end but whatever. So I learned when I was reading about Starbucks vs. Dunkin Donuts that Starbucks employees will often spell names wrong on purpose to get free advertising. Thank you selfies!

So Gobemouche. Another French word, Gobemouche is one of my new favorite ways to describe people. And it's likely that you are one. Yes, most of you reading this are Gobemouches. So what is it? Well, a Gobemouche is someone who is highly gullible, and will believe a lot of what they hear or read. That thing about Starbucks? Made it up. I'm cool.

And no, it has nothing to do with
basketball. Just the mouth.

It's likely that this term comes from the picture on the left. (Not this picture exactly. Just the idea of it.)
Basically, whenever someone is in shock or surprise of hearing such a wonderful, made-up story, their mouth hangs open. And we all know what happens then: Flies get in your mouth. Of course. So that's where this word comes from.
Gobemouche is a compound word, from Gober, meaning "to swallow," and Mouche, a fly.
So a Gobemouche is a fly-swallower, or someone who believes everything and really needs to find a way to clamp their mouth shut.