QOTD (signal boost from eftychia)

[redbird]

"When you start looking at a post about some foreign language's oddly specific word for something that you never thought there would be a specific word for, remember that English has a specific word for tricking people into listening to Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up'.

"English also has a single word for 'manipulation of electoral boundaries to reduce the influence of opposing political groups in future elections'."

-- Dancer, your Space Dad (algo_anthill), 2019-01-01

Comments

[miss_s_b]

Trudat

[cjsmith]

Y'know, I always thought it was odd that we (and more than one other language) had a single-syllable word for strapping long boards to the bottom of one's feet and gliding on them down a snow-covered mountain, but those two have now definitely got to go into my mental collection for this kind of thing. :)

[vass]

Meanwhile on Tumblr, people are currently discussing how to conjugate the verb "yeet" (to fling something high and far.) Yote, have yitten...

[erik]

"He yoth the thing thither" is my current favorite.

[thnidu]

Excellent point and examples. I'll have to remember them.

[minoanmiss]

... okay? I mean, I didn't think those lists were intended to say "look at how weird non-English languages are" because English is a famously weird language, but "look at these interesting words culled from various languages". Rickroll and gerrymander would go beautifully on such lists.

[kalmn]

THANK YOU. i couldn't quite work out the meaning from context.