WordNerding

[Sunflower]

So, if someone could explain to me how to quote just part of someone's post, that would be great. How is it skaldic powers?

Hit the "Quote" button in the upper right and then edit the part inside the pairs of square brackets.  (The [ quote author=whoever(etc.) ] and [ /quote ] tags work like HTML.)

If you just want to quote something, e.g. from Disqus or another Web site, use the "Quote" tag button -- in the row above the emoticons, it's 6th in from the right, the one with the square quote-balloon.

Like this.

As "Skald," a role our Admin (Eich) created for me, I have partial forum-admin powers.  I can split, merge, move and rename threads.  I can't delete or change individual posts, though. 

Any other questions? 

[SugaAndSpice]

Nope. That is all. Soooooo maaaagical! ( theramins, it is a quote from MLP. )

[SugaAndSpice]

Nope. That is all. Soooooo maaaagical! ( theramins, it is a quote from MLP. )

Sorry, I realize that didn't make any sense. " theeeeramin? Soooooo maaaagical!!" Is a quote from Rainbow Rocks, a MLP movie.

[Stefanyeah]

I know it's really low-brow to be amused/intrigued by perfectly ordinary words in other languages, but when I was about 12 I was just knocked over to learn:
1) "Pamplemousse" = "grapefruit" in French

There's also the German word Pampelmuse. Funny word really. XD

Oh, so many beautiful words! How could I choose one over the other? 

For example do you know the longest german word?
"Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmütze"!
(okay, it is a composite word, but I really like how German allows to make up your own words in simply glueing them together: Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmützenständer... Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenständerverordnung...Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmützenständerverordnungsmappe... okay, I stop now).

What about Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleisch­etikettierungs­überwachungs­aufgabenübertragungsgesetz (wikipedia:  Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law)? It's the short form of "Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung".


If you ask me about favourite words, I'll always think of the Dutch "paraplutje" first. It's the diminutive for paraplu (umbrella).
I'm also on a mission to re-introduce "yesternight" into the language. It's so much more elegant and smooth than "yesterday night".

[SugaAndSpice]

I like the word extrapolate. Also, once I was in France and we were looking for restaurants to have dinner at, when my brother and I saw some redonculous translations from French to English. The most memorable, however, was this: Squid has the Romar. I do not know what it was, but it was funny. Still is!

[Oh Deer]

My favorites
Ailurophile: a cat lover
Petrichor: the smell of earth after rain
Imbue: to infuse
Komorebi: when sunlight filters through leaves (Japanese)
Susurrus: a soft whisper
Mangaia: the road like reflection of the moon on water (Swedish)
Eunioa: beautiful thinking
Alate: having wings
Selcouth: rare, strange, yet marvelous
Aesthete: a deep sensitivity to the beauty of art and nature
And...
Solivagant: wandering alone

[Mélusine]

Petrichor: the smell of earth after rain

This one is beautiful.

[JoB]

2) "Kartoffel" = "potato" in German.  It's just fun to say.  Kartoffel, Kartoffel, Kartoffel.   

Welcome to the maelstrom ...

(IIRC potatoes, and pancakes made thereof, are the concepts with the most regional names for the exact same thing in the German language.)

A couple years back, I pointed an English-speaking online forum to the Pfanni homepage for some reason, and having pages of it Google translated to English became the forum's running gag for months.

However, Wal-Mart is at least a partial monopsony; it's a VERY powerful buyer, so all its suppliers (Colgate-Palmolive, etc.) jump when it snaps its fingers.

That'ld be Aldi (either half) over here. They're known to have pumped up suppliers by placing ever-bigger orders, and then forced them to lower the price or flat out canceled the contract so as to have them go bankrupt.

I know how to say mushroom, window, and spinach in French, amongst other givens ( mui, excuse mui, etc.) .

("Excusez moi".)

Fun idiom from French French: "écraser le champignon" (stomp the white mushroom) = to speed, to floor the pedal. From a domestic-produced military van (IIRC produced by Heuliez) which didn't have a normal pedal for an accelerator, but only a metal "pin" coming up through the floorboard with a mushroom-shaped rubber(?) pedal/gasket stuck onto it.

[SugaAndSpice]

("Excusez moi".)

Pardon my French, literally. I have no language writing skill other than English, Spanish and Greek. I really should be recording these words. I especially liked incandescent, kartoffel, ailorophile, oh wait. I am probably going to list all of them well, keep up the good words! I mean, work!

[jesty]

Oooh! Favorite words! Let's see... *scratches head*

Instantaneously  (the word itself is long but its definition is: "short and quick", kind of ironic, that's why i like it)
Pentasyllabic      (when describing a word that has five syllables, the word "pentasyllabic" has 5 syllables, its basically describing itself!)
Crinkle               (I just like saying it out loud "Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, crinkle")

And in Spanish:

Esperanza         (Hope, but sometimes can have a deeper and sadder meaning similar to "desperate" or "waiting anxiously")
Mañana             (Tomorrow; I just like saying anything with an "ñ" in it)
Pañuelo             (Handkerchief)
Pengüino           (Penguin )
Ardilla               (squirrel)
Galleta              (has a nice meaning: cracker/cookie; and a not so good one: a slap in the back of the head)

Japanese:
"Shouganai"   (roughly translates to "It cannot be helped". One of my Japanese friends use to say this all the time when anything bad happened, sort of like saying "Oh well" or "There's nothing we can do about it, so lets move on")

[tabeabd]

Esperanza is a fun word to say!

A couple words in Portuguese I like for some reason:

Papagaio (parrot)
Chinelos (house slippers)

I don't know if it's this way in European Portuguese, but at least in Brazilian Portuguese, it does this thing where the o sounds a bit more like a u. So to me they sound like "pa-pa-gai-yu" and "shi-ne-luz"

[SugaAndSpice]

Favorite Greek word: koutopolo. It means chicken, as in cooked chicken. Also, Spanish, I am not sure how to spell this, so I will sound it out. Call me immature, but hey! 5th grade happens. Pu-pee-tré. It means a school desk, I think. I do like galleta. My favorite French words are some of the only ones I know: champinion, finetra, and epinards. I do not think I spelled any of them right, but meanings in order of appearance, mushroom, window, and spinach. I like spinach and I guess I like windows, but I despise mushrooms. That is another good word right there, despise.

[Sunflower]

Also, once I was in France and we were looking for restaurants to have dinner at, when my brother and I saw some redonculous translations from French to English. The most memorable, however, was this: Squid has the Romar. I do not know what it was, but it was funny. Still is!

I hope it doesn't ruin the humor if I guess that "Romar" = the herb rosemary.  The proper name in French is "romarin." 

Speaking of foreign menus/signs, when my family and I visited the Netherlands years ago, we saw signs everywhere that "hondepoopen" (sp?) was forbidden.  The word means "dog poops."  We thought it was hilarious.  (Score another point for Ugly Americans!    )

[Curry]

Also, Spanish, I am not sure how to spell this, so I will sound it out. Call me immature, but hey! 5th grade happens. Pu-pee-tré. It means a school desk, I think.

Ah yeah I think you mean pupitre! It *is* a school desk, nice memory!
Some of my favorites are probably bombastic, abhor, and aesthetic because they're so fun to say!

[Fen Shen]

So many great words  And I don't think it is immature to laugh about foreign words that sound funny when you don't understand the meaning (Sunflower, hondepoopen is great). As I mentioned in the travel thread, I recently laughed about a Swedish postcard which sends "kram" to the recipient - meaning hugs, but it is "stuff" in German.

In German, I like the verb "zischen" (to hiss, to sizzle) because it sounds like the sound it is describing. Hm, I see now that this also applies to the English counterparts.