Interesting Words (moved from Games)

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Sac des bananes?
No. I guess that would mean a bag belonging to or containing some specific bananas ("bag of the bananas"), not something you'd often have an opportunity to say. I think you meant to say sac de bananes, but that isn't it either. A sac de bananes is a bag containing bananas. What we've got here is a bag that looks like, or metaphorically is, a banana: un sac banane.
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
Aha! Aside from my French being just a soupçon merde, it was the ambiguity of the English 'banana bag' that threw me off from the start.
 

Callaina

Feles Curiosissima

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patrona

Location:
Canada
I came across "oneyer" today (which I had never seen before) in Hardy's Jude the Obscure:

“Ah, yes—you are a oneyer too, like myself,” said Arabella, eyeing her visitor with humorous criticism.
A footnote explains that it means "individualist; singular person".
 

Callaina

Feles Curiosissima

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patrona

Location:
Canada
Another interesting word I came across today:

"Go over to the Lough, and tell Joseph that he must change the foundation of this house to where I'll show you fornent the thorn-bush."

(From Mythologies, by W.B. Yeats.)
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
And gongoozler is a new one on me too.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Spiegelschrift, Ger., literally "mirror writing", i.e. writing that is reversed so that it can be read in the normal direction in a mirror.
 

Adrian

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

hybelkanin [NO] lit. "bedsit rabbit" - a small clump of dust that tends to accumulate indoors in areas that are not regularly dusted
morgenbrød [NO] lit. "morning bread" - nocturnal penile tumescence (morning wood)
 

Adrian

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

luremus [NO] lit. "fooling mouse" - norwegian equivalent of allumeuse or Québecois agace-pissette.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Or is a somewhat underused (at least in everyday speech) French conjunction. I find it's fairly equivalent to autem used as a transitionary word (though not so much when autem marks a stronger, "whereas" kind of contrast).

I sometimes feel the lack of a real equivalent of autem in English. I'm lucky to have something close in French, though I realized it only maybe a year or so ago.
 

Iáson

Cívis Illústris

  • Civis Illustris

Or is a somewhat underused (at least in everyday speech) French conjunction.
Not exactly underused in scholarly articles though...
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Interesting... I didn't even know that existed, let alone had a name.
 
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