Words you think should exist in English

[aggle-rithm]

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

I also hate that we don't have a second-person plural pronoun (We have "ya'll" in Texas, but I don't use it because it makes me sound like a Texan).

PERSON 1 (Addressing a group of people): You have to get your act together!

PERSON 2: Who? Me?

PERSON 1: No, I mean you people have to get your act together!

BLACK PERSON: What do you mean, you people? Why do you always blame everything on the blacks?!?

PERSON 1: No, no. I mean YA'LL have to get your act together!

PERSON 3: HE'S A TEXAN!! GET HIM!!

 

[aggle-rithm]

My wife and I use the word "doggage" a lot. You would understand if you, too, had two border collies.

Usage: After spending $4000 on a new fence, our back yard can now handle some serious doggage.

 

[ddt]

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

Don't confuse "German" (one language) with "Germanic" (a group of related languages).

Anyway: Words I would like to see in English:

Bausparer

That word is really only applicable in a culture where parents open a savings account for their kids when they're born and hope the kid has accumulated enough capital on it when it's 40 to build his own home. Crazy people, those Germans.

 

[brodski]

I also hate that we don't have a second-person plural pronoun (We have "ya'll" in Texas, but I don't use it because it makes me sound like a Texan).

PERSON 1 (Addressing a group of people): You have to get your act together!

PERSON 2: Who? Me?

PERSON 1: No, I mean you people have to get your act together!

BLACK PERSON: What do you mean, you people? Why do you always blame everything on the blacks?!?

PERSON 1: No, no. I mean YA'LL have to get your act together!

PERSON 3: HE'S A TEXAN!! GET HIM!!

You is the second person plural, it's a second person singular which we have lacked since thou fell out of favour.

 

[wollery]

I also hate that we don't have a second-person plural pronoun (We have "ya'll" in Texas, but I don't use it because it makes me sound like a Texan).

PERSON 1 (Addressing a group of people): You have to get your act together!

PERSON 2: Who? Me?

PERSON 1: No, I mean you people have to get your act together!

BLACK PERSON: What do you mean, you people? Why do you always blame everything on the blacks?!?

PERSON 1: No, no. I mean YA'LL have to get your act together!

PERSON 3: HE'S A TEXAN!! GET HIM!!

In Scouse it's yous.

 

[Elizabeth I]

I also hate that we don't have a second-person plural pronoun (We have "ya'll" in Texas, but I don't use it because it makes me sound like a Texan).

PERSON 1 (Addressing a group of people): You have to get your act together!

PERSON 2: Who? Me?

PERSON 1: No, I mean you people have to get your act together!

BLACK PERSON: What do you mean, you people? Why do you always blame everything on the blacks?!?

PERSON 1: No, no. I mean YA'LL have to get your act together!

PERSON 3: HE'S A TEXAN!! GET HIM!!

I use "y'all" as the second-person plural proudly. After all, Brooklyn and Philly have "youse" and the Midwest has "you guys" (not strictly applicable if addressing a group containing both genders.)

What makes me mad is when people say we use "y'all" as the second-person singular, as in, "Rhett Butler, if y'all aren't the biggest scoundrel in Atlanta."

And I thought "thou" was second-person singular familiar, only used to family members and close friends? Similar to usted and tu in Spanish?

 

[Foolmewunz]

I've used this before - Schlockumentary.

Describing the serious reporting of Dylan Avery and Geraldo Rivera.

 

[TheAnachronism]

Interestingly, one word that is sometimes claimed to have no equivalent in English, the German word schadenfreude, does have an English synonym: epicaricacy.

Another one is gemütlich, although I don't see why "canny" doesn't suffice.

 

[Lucian]

I use "y'all" as the second-person plural proudly. After all, Brooklyn and Philly have "youse" and the Midwest has "you guys" (not strictly applicable if addressing a group containing both genders.)

What makes me mad is when people say we use "y'all" as the second-person singular, as in, "Rhett Butler, if y'all aren't the biggest scoundrel in Atlanta."

And I thought "thou" was second-person singular familiar, only used to family members and close friends? Similar to usted and tu in Spanish?

In Old English, þu, þin and þe, acc. and dat. (thou, thy, thee) were the second person singular forms; ge (pronounced "yay"), eower, eow (you, your, you) were the plural forms. There was no distinction between familiar and polite. In Middle English the plural form began to be used as the polite form. Eventually, thou/thee faded away.

Old English also had both a first and second person dual form: wit, uncer, unc (we two, both of ours, the two of us) and git (pronounced "yit"), incer, inc. Icelandic may still have dual forms.

 

[aerosolben]

One of my favorites - I forget the source - is
Millihelen: The amount of beauty needed to launch one ship.

Indeterminate - the Wiki article on Humorous units of measurement has more information, including the lovely (though uncited) line:

Since the original quotation was "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium", a more accurate definition of the millihelen might be the amount of beauty required to launch a single ship and ignite a wastebasket.

 

[Galaxie]

I think the contraction won't should be replaced with willn't.

Nevermind that it's two extra keystrokes...

 

[Foolmewunz]

New Word Needed

While we're on the topic - and without forming a new thread.....

How about missing words? Or words that we never had a need for but would now make life a lot easier. I ran into one this morning.

There is no word for that little bit of cappuccino or latte foam that shoots up through the sipping hole/spout of the lid of your take-away cup.

There has to be something better than saying, "You know,... that little bit of foam that spurts out when you cover a take out cappuccino..."

 

[six7s]

Mocchasm?

 

[Foolmewunz]

Mochasm?

Hmm? Probably on the right track. (When in doubt graphic double entendres should always be the first choice.)

Cappugasm?

 

[six7s]

I like the homophone mock/mocch... but hey... its your spurt!

 

[six7s]

Cappulation

 

[stilicho]

Droomy.

This is an adjective I tried unsuccessfully to coin when writing something for a class in junior high. It means dark, gloomy, dreary, with a hint of drums in the distance.

My story was returned with a big red circle around the word and an arrow pointing from a large "-1".

The next year, my coined word "artifecal" didn't do any better.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Cappulation

Ejacuccino..... Man, that sounds filthy! Love it.

 

[dann]

And I thought "thou" was second-person singular familiar, only used to family members and close friends? Similar to usted and tu in Spanish?

Middle English:

“Thou would have been used by those of higher standing addressing those beneath them (such as a master addressing a servant) or commoners addressing one another. You, on the other hand, would have been used by those of lower social standing addressing those above them (such as a child addressing a parent) or by the upper class addressing one another. Thou implied intimacy; you implied a polite reserve.
(…)
With the beginning of Early Modern English in the fifteenth century, however, the distinction was already becoming lost as you began to supplant thou as the only second person pronoun. By the time Shakespeare was writing, the inconsistency of his usage tells us that the process was already underway. For instance, Shakespeare often uses ye and you interchangeably, and there are instances of close friends or lovers calling each other you as well as thou—sometimes within the same speech.”
http://www.bardweb.net/content/thou.html

In Danish we have De and du, but De, the polite/subservient/reserved form, seems to be disappearing, which makes it difficult for Danes speaking German to make the right distinction between Sie and du.
(And I don't think that the distinction should be re-introduced in English!)

 

[Mark6]

Two words I know English is missing, because Russian has them:

1. A single word which means "24-hour period of time". Not just from midnight to midnight, and not ambiguous "day", but any 24-hour slice of time.

2. A verb which means "to possess skill at something", distinct from the verb "to know". In English, "I know how to drive a forklift" can mean "I've driven forklift many times and can do it without thinking", or it can mean "I know which knob does what". In Russian there are two completely different verbs for these concepts.