I've always been envious of British slang words, particularly the insults. Your list is endless (and hilarious) whereas ours mostly just consists of idiot, a$shole...er, have I mentioned idiot yet?
I can't wait to deploy these at some point.
5th June 2025 17:14
Mike
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
Quote:
Posted by Bill Ryan
When my father swore (RIP: 1902—1986; he was an Irish-Canadian), every time he would yell:
Curuckabonyetta!!
That's phonetic. He never wrote it down. I have no idea what it means, or where it came from. I wish I'd asked him! :ROFL:
This actually, literally made me laugh out loud. I love it:bigsmile:
5th June 2025 19:41
Mark (Star Mariner)
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
It sounds vaguely Italian to me. Bill, you should consult Grok or ChatGPT. Get it to analyse the phonetics to see if it can come up with a source.
5th June 2025 20:10
Open Minded Dude
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
One of the German words for the infamous ":snow:" / "Snowflake" is "Warmduscher" (literally 'warm showerer' = someone who only takes warm showers). I always wondered why there was no literal corresponding English expression. The one that approaches it would be 'toe dipper'.
However, a more narrow (and correct) translation for "Snowflake :snow:" describing an easily offended and over-sensitve person (also in the context of modern day wokeness) would be "Mimose".
Btw, 'pudica' in Latin means 'shame', 'bashful', or 'shrinking', alluding to its shrinking reaction to contact. But now I digress.
5th June 2025 23:56
rgray222
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
A fun little video appropriate for this thread. Certainly not difficult words, but words to make you sound a bit sophisticated when describing something annoying.
8th June 2025 20:19
Kryztian
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
You know how when one talks about the horror and senselessness going on in Gaza, and you talk in terms of well grounded information about the targeting of journalists and deliberate bombing of hospitals and the number of starving children, and then there are these people who accuse you of "antisemitism" for talking intelligently? Well there is a word for those people:
I bought a thesaurus the other day. It's nothing to write house about.
The below is a quote from The Meaning of Liff:
Ahenny (adj.): The way people stand when examining other people’s bookshelves. The Meaning of Liff, by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd:
10th June 2025 14:20
Johan (Keyholder)
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
SOPHROSYNE or "In how far are you a sophron individual?"
Sophrosyne (Ancient Greek: σωφροσύνη) is an ancient Greek concept of an ideal of excellence of character and soundness of mind, which when combined in one well-balanced individual leads to other qualities, such as temperance, moderation, prudence, purity, decorum, and self-control.
Sophrosyne encompasses a range of qualities, including:
Moderation: Finding the right balance in all things, avoiding excess or deficiency. Self-control: Managing one's impulses and desires, exercising restraint. Prudence: Acting with wisdom and caution, considering the consequences of one's actions. Temperance: Maintaining a balanced and virtuous life, avoiding extremes in both pleasure and pain. Self-knowledge: Understanding one's own strengths and weaknesses. Self-restraint: Controlling oneself, especially in situations that could lead to excess or recklessness.
Sophrosyne was a highly valued virtue in ancient Greece, often contrasted with hubris, which refers to excessive pride and arrogance. It was seen as a key element of a well-rounded individual and a healthy society.
It looks like sophrosyne as a goal for a/our society is not attainable (anymore). But we can at least do our personal best to be as sophrosyne as possible.
15th June 2025 09:38
Bill Ryan
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
This had me stumped for a short while. :) From Pepe Escobar:(who speaks 3 languages fluently, and probably understands many more)
“Washington continues to implement Brzezinski’s suicidal strategy, which consists of five stages: the seizure of Ukraine, the separation of Europe from Russia, the subjugation of Russia, the destruction of Iran, and the isolation of China. Having stumbled on the third stage, they have now begun the fourth.”
~~~
So I looked up chirurgical, and it seems (by some accounts!) it's not really even a regular English word. But it means surgical. :thumbsup:
15th June 2025 12:32
Open Minded Dude
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
Quote:
Posted by Bill Ryan
So I looked up chirurgical, and it seems (by some accounts!) it's not really even a regular English word. But it means surgical. :thumbsup:
It is certainly 'Latin/Roman' in origin because in German we say the quite similar 'chirurgisch' for surgical.
Historically, 'surgical and 'chirurgical' also seem to have the same stem in 'urg(ical)'. It's not a Germanic word. The English variant seems to have derived from it as a kind of clipping (shortened word) which often happened in English or other Germanic languages to originally Roman/Latin words.
The Latin "original" version (uninflected) is 'chīrūrgicus'. I guess that's where it all comes from.
Wiktionary tells us though that the 'archaic' version was still in use in Middle English (medieval times):
"Etymology
From Middle English cirurgical, from Middle French cirurgical, from Medieval Latin chirurgicālis."
:sherlock:
15th June 2025 13:33
Mike
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
conbaffled.:)
Not a real word. Not a slang word. A word invented by a friend of mine by accident, which I'm including here for everyone's amusement.
Just a couple days ago, while attempting to explain something that had caused him confusion (or bafflement), he concluded by saying, "I was totally conbaffled!"
He couldn't decide which word to use between 'confused' and 'baffled', his brain sorta glitched out, and he spat out this ridiculous hybrid of the two: conbaffled.
15th June 2025 13:45
grapevine
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
Quote:
Posted by Open Minded Dude
Quote:
Posted by Bill Ryan
So I looked up chirurgical, and it seems (by some accounts!) it's not really even a regular English word. But it means surgical. :thumbsup:
It is certainly 'Latin/Roman' in origin because in German we say the quite similar 'chirurgisch' for surgical.
I guess it comes from Latin, e.g. the French also say 'chirurgical'.
That's interesting. I wonder whether it's specific to feet as in chir-opody, but just a guess.
My contribution, not a new word but not often used, is ubiquitous. You'd think it'd be used more often because it means "Existing or being everywhere, or in all places, at the same time", like mobile phones, Mcdonalds, politics, social media, etc. However, it seems that the only thing NOT ubiquitous these days is the word itself :)
And a new phrase which I recently came across and can relate to 100% is "doom-scrolling"
15th June 2025 14:30
Open Minded Dude
Re: The Joy of Learning New Words
Quote:
Posted by grapevine
Quote:
Posted by Open Minded Dude
Quote:
Posted by Bill Ryan
So I looked up chirurgical, and it seems (by some accounts!) it's not really even a regular English word. But it means surgical. :thumbsup:
It is certainly 'Latin/Roman' in origin because in German we say the quite similar 'chirurgisch' for surgical.
I guess it comes from Latin, e.g. the French also say 'chirurgical'.
That's interesting. I wonder whether it's specific to feet as in chir-opody, but just a guess.
Rather the hand than the foot. And rather chiro-pody because the prefix is chiro. Sometimes turned to 'chiru-'.
The prefix 'chiro' is still very common also in English, it just was turned into - and thus the expression altogether simpified - a 'su-' for the word chirurgical in English.
Seems the Romans also took it from the Greek though (which happened often in antiquity, they took a lot of knowledge in medicine, literature, philosophy, general science, etc. from the Greek, not just words, they are just the consequence or result of this cultural enrichment, transfer or 'appropriation' if you will).
Google (KI) for 'chiro-':
The prefix "chiro-" originates from the Greek word "cheir," meaning hand. It's used in English to form words related to hands or manual actions.
For example:
Chiropractic: Involving treatment by hand, specifically manipulation of the spine.
Chiromancy: Palm reading, divination by lines on the hand.
Chirography: Handwriting.
If we're doing slang, I'd like to add two (British) variants of the above. We Brits are world experts in creative slurs and profanity.Quote: