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Words you think should exist in English

There needs to be some standard way to answer a question posed in the negative, e.g. "You didn't like it?"

Also, a word for "mind-heart".
 
Dunno if this is an urban/net-based, email-propagated myth or for real... I know its old and I think its funny :)

The Washington Post's Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are this year's winners:


1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

9. Karmageddon (n): its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

10 Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an *******.​
 
I would love to hear words that you think should exist in English--whether or not you came up with them yourself, or are merely an advocate for someone else's idea.
My wife and I often speak in Don King-ese... adding a bunch of suffixes to words, mostly adjectives, to make them pseudo-intellectual. For instance, "fortitude" becomes "fortinatudimalism."
 
The Meaning of Liff
By Douglas Adams and John Lloyd



Can be heaps of fun if/when a bunch of friends become 'fluent'

Yes! One very useful word from Liff (for an all too common occurrence) is:

YESNABY (n.)

A 'yes, maybe' which means 'no'.



Couple interesting ones in Norwegian - we have two different words for 'yes' (ja and jo), and a word (døgn) used interchangeably for a day and a night (read: a calendar day), or a 24 hour period.

In the case of ja/jo, ja is a plain yes, while jo is a disagreeing/correcting yes.

[...]

You don't know what you're missing, people;).

And you don't know how well you're off :)

- seeing as a word like "jo" is exactly what Tsukasa is asking for, here:

There needs to be some standard way to answer a question posed in the negative, e.g. "You didn't like it?"

I think this little word works the same in Danish, and it's great. Basically, it's a slight alteration of the regular "yes", used only when denying a question with a negation in it. It works so well, in fact, that there's no parallel for "no" - answering no to a negative question unambigously affirms it.

Strangely, I think if you did a poll, most people wouldn't be able to tell you exactly why you use one or the other form of yes - but they use it every day.

Dunno if this is an urban/net-based, email-propagated myth or for real... I know its old and I think its funny :)

Yes, they are. Reminds me of a popular feature on the BBC anti-panel-game show I'm sorry, I haven't a Clue (which also gave us the game of Mornington Crescent), Uxbridge English Dictionary.

You can hear a few of those at Archive.org.
 
The English language has always failed me when I try to think of just the right word to call my ex.

Would it break any Forum rules to make up an obscene word that doesn't actually exist ? I don't want to get into any trouble.
 
Would it break any Forum rules to make up an obscene word that doesn't actually exist? I don't want to get into any trouble.

I hope not :eye-poppi Next, they'd want to arrest me for killing all those people who didn't exist. And here I thought I'd never get caught.

13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

This is, sadly, the only time I can dance.

In the case of ja/jo, ja is a plain yes, while jo is a disagreeing/correcting yes.

You know, it's odd that English never adopted such a distinction, given that a lot of Euro languages do. I know that in French it is oui/si and in German ja/doch.
 
Interestingly, one word that is sometimes claimed to have no equivalent in English, the German word schadenfreude, does have an English synonym: epicaricacy.
 
Interestingly, one word that is sometimes claimed to have no equivalent in English, the German word schadenfreude, does have an English synonym: epicaricacy.

As they say in "Avenue Q":

"Joy at the misfortune of others? That is German!"
 
Well, it's a loanword in English from German.

How many English words aren't loan words to some extent?

"Epicaricacy" was created from borrowing Greek syllables in order to create a "native" English word so that we didn't have to rely on a German borrowing. I find the irony of doing that in English delicious. :D
 
Well, it's a loanword in English from German.


English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England... Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

Anyway: Words I would like to see in English:

Rechtsabbieger
Legehennengeburtshelfer
Bananenbieger
Bausparer
Abi-Jahr-auf-Heckscheibe-Schreiber
ABS-Bremser
Ampel-Grüngänger
Auf-die-Zigarette-danach-Verzichter
Badezimmerspiegelfoener
Bei-Erkältung-Zuhausebleiber
Klodeckelhochmacher
 
Couple interesting ones in Norwegian - we have two different words for 'yes' (ja and jo), and a word (døgn) used interchangeably for a day and a night (read: a calendar day), or a 24 hour period.

In the case of ja/jo, ja is a plain yes, while jo is a disagreeing/correcting yes.

Danish and Norwegian have those in common, no wonder.
(Funny that Wiki claims that "Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants". Since Swedes, Norwegians and Danes tend to speak English with each other, I think that we should probably stress the word less.)
I don't know about Norwegian, but in Danish we have the German word Schadenfreude, skadefryd. (Nelson's trademark)

However, I always miss another Danish word bagklog (adj) (along with the derived bagklogskab (sb)), which does not appear to exist in any other (Non-Scandinavian) language. In our context (skepticism) it comes in handy when talking about astrologers, financial advisers or other diviners who claim to be able to predict future events. My dictionary translates it as follows:
bagklog adj. wise after the event
bagklogskab wisdom after the event, hindsight

However, the meaning is that somebody claims to have predicted or to have known all the time that something would happen but only says so after the event.
afterwise, afterwisdom?
 
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Bei-Erkältung-Zuhausebleiber

I confess to being a Bei-Erkältung-Zuhausebleiber, somebody who stays home when he has a cold.

And I once invented the word Volkskörpergemeinschaftszugehörigkeitskriterium (in a discussion about the Holocaust).
 
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I confess to being a Bei-Erkältung-Zuhausebleiber, somebody who stays home when he has a cold.

And I once invented the word Volkskörpergemeinschaftszugehörigkeitskriterium (in a discussion about the Holocaust).


Well, Volkskörpergemeinschaftszugehörigkeitskriterium could be translated into "ethnical affiliation criteria". But Havingacoldathomestayer sounds stupid in English. :(
 

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