Interesting Words (moved from Games)

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
Now you know.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

A Scottish woman once explained that word to me in the context of bum bags. Which Americans call fanny packs. Which British people find weird.
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
Thank you, Westcott. That has to be either Scottish or the NE of England humour!
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
Guy in a Glasgow baker's: Is that a Paris bun or a meringue?
Baker: Yer no wrang at aa, it's a Paris bun.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
LOL.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
Fanny packs are good in fashion.
 

Westcott

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Vicar, surveying congregation; "Is that young Fanny Green on the front row?"
Curate; "No vicar, it's just the light shining through the stained glass window."
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
joss1
noun

  • A Chinese religious statue or idol.
    ‘And last year, Italians spent over 450m euros on fortune tellers, faith - healers, holy men and joss - stick burners of every flavour.’
    ‘Producers proudly displayed products such as joss and incense sticks, belt buckles, knives textiles, scissors and papier-mâché items.’
Origin
Early 18th century from Javanese dejos, from obsolete Portuguese deos, from Latin deus ‘god’.


 

Serenus

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

such as joss and incense sticks
I've never come across this word before, and it's very interesting to see that "joss" is clearly treated as a mass noun there. I wonder if it generally has a negative connotation? Interestingly, I feel that if the word was a countable noun it'd be more respectful, but with that mass noun the statues are seemingly treated as mere furniture or decoration (to use other mass nouns).
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

I'd only heard it in 'joss stick', referring to incense, and vaguely assumed that the word itself meant the smelly stuff.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I think the French word "unijambiste", meaning a one-legged person, is interesting in that it sounds perfectly ridiculous.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
Kinda like lackadaisical. Which means, "showing no interest, vigor, determination, or enthusiasm".
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Yes, it does... I really don't know what went through the mind of whoever coined that word.
 

meisenimverbis

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Rio de Janeiro
A common interesting word in Portuguese will be paralelepípedo. It's very widely thought of as an interesting word. It does sound funny in Portuguese. (And it's actually Greek...)
 

meisenimverbis

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Rio de Janeiro
This one is not thought of as an interesting word, because it's so common, I guess people never remember it, but it's a nice one: borboleta, which is a butterfly.
 
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