Comments on: What concepts do not exist in the English language?

By: mig

mig — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 21:34:44 +0000

fixed the yahoo thing, thanks for mentioning it and not just giving up.
as far as spamblocking getting out of hand, my logs show about 50 attempts at comment spam blocked in the last 2 hours.

By: asfo_del

asfo_del — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:10:13 +0000

Interesting: apparently what you’re not allowed to post is a y*hoo mail address. So the email address I actually posted is fake, but I guess that’s okay?

I grew up speaking Italian, English, and Portuguese. I agree that almost any concept can be explained if one is willing or able to take the time to do so, but it’s also true that there are many words whose meaning is difficult to convey. I haven’t been able to explain to my Italian mother what “cheesy” means. (“Formaggioso” doesn’t work… :)) “Cozy”, which has already been mentioned, doesn’t exist in Italian either. English has no word for “simpatico” — although the word simpatico is itself used in English, but incorrectly. I find that English lacks an adequate word for “cattivo” as used to refer to a person. Cattivo simply means bad, but when we say in English that a person is bad that sounds very mild, even childish. Cattivo implies a malevolent intent, an inherent callousness, but “evil” is too strong.

By: asfodel

asfodel — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:08:01 +0000

I tried to post a comment but it was repeatedly rejected no matter what I tried to delete. Spam blocking is getting out of hand.

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 02:12:03 +0000

Blinger: I’m one of the “blowhards” and, for what it’s worth, there are quite a lot of us who want to see MeFi reopened to new members.

Lately, though, the site has been very slow (and often down) so I believe there need to be a few upgrades made before this is done. But then it will be open again.

By: me

me — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:09:50 +0000

Still, I’d love to be able to figure out how to describe “cozy” or “snuggle” to my french friends without having to take half an hour to explain the concept and give lots of similies…. but then again, it took weeks for me to understand what “glauque” means, and it was a lot of fun listening to all the explanations that were offered.

Learning new words that require a description of the concept rather than a translation of the word is a lot of fun, and makes for great dinner conversation

By: francis s.

francis s. — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 20:30:37 +0000

Yes, Anne. I can’t think of anything in Swedish that an English speaker actually wouldn’t understand if properly explained… there are foreign concepts but they can be explained in a way that can be understood I think. Ov

By: anne

anne — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 19:08:22 +0000

it was an interesting thread and i enjoyed it not least because nobody brought up the myth about the five kerjillion words for snow. but it was not surprising how quickly it devolved into “this word doesn’t have a directly translatable word”. i tend to get all itchy and irritable when people talk about one language being harder or easier or worst of all RICHER than another, or when they say something “can’t be translated”– it’s the thing that turned me off kundera, his whole “one really really unique thing about czech is this special special thing that simply can’t be translated” like how there is no word in english for LITOST (“a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery”). which there is, it’s REGRET! it’s even a one word deal! kundera does that kind of stuff a lot, with language (this language is complex and untranslatable) and with culture (this way of thinking is complex and cannot be understood by someone who did not experience this very exact event leading to this way of thinking). every time i see that kind of thing from a writer i think, what is the point of art altogether? aren’t we to some degree trying to communicate to each other, not only to people who are very much like us but also to people who maybe are very different, and isn’t the task then to go about explaining as well as possible, rather than waving a dismissive hand and saying, you don’t have this word, this concept, you could never understand.

i think the translator’s dilemma is, at what point do i start explaining the cultural background of this, or when do i just leave the word in the original language and leave the finding out up to the reader? that doesn’t mean it can’t be translated, though. stavros took a stab at “translating” some korean there and i thought it was pretty clear, even though i’ve not been in korea. in japan (“itadakimasu”) and in czech (“dobrou chut”), people say something before they eat. in america (unless you say grace) you probably don’t. that doesn’t mean the concept cannot be explained to and understood by americans, or even that the concept doesn’t exist (because some people do say grace, so it’s culturally understood that you might say something before you eat), simply that it’s not as universal as it is in other countries. i think in general the failure to communicate a concept lies with the person who is doing the communicating, rather than with the language he tried to communicate with.

well, that’s enough out of me. it’s a slow work day, what can i say?

By: Blinger

Blinger — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:47:21 +0000

well when I typed a word that has the meaning of family members engaging in intercourse with one another my comment was rejected. that sounds like a spam filter too me.

By: mig

mig — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:47:06 +0000

What spam filter?

By: Blinger

Blinger — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:22:20 +0000

it wasn’t my web site address it was another word I had chosen which unfortunately has a meaning other than the one I intended and got caught by the spam filter.

By: Blinger

Blinger — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:20:35 +0000

I’m boycotting all the meta-sites since they do not accept new members and haven’t since at least March when I first tried. To me it is just a bunch of blowhads feeding off of one another to the exclusion of everyone else.

It’s just one big circle jerk – there isn’t even a way to contact someone about opening membership again. If you are a member of the community perhaps you can pass the word to the people in charge.

p.s your spam filter doesn’t like my website address for some reason – so I decided to use CNN