favorite words, or something like

[redbird]

alexseanchai pointed me at angelofthenorth's cafe post for language learners, and this session's conversation-starter is favorite words.

I said that my favorite French word was pampelmousse, and then got to thinking about favorite words in other languages that I know enough of for the question to make sense (I don't have a favorite word in Japanese, for example).

My first thought for Spanish was "fue," because that needs at least a little context to translate. Standing alone, it's either "I was" or "I went." (Present tense doesn't have that odd homonym: "soy" is "I am" and "voy" is "I go.")

I don't have a favorite English word, for the opposite reason from why I don't have a favorite Russian one: it's my native language, there's a world of choices, and in most moods it would be about meaning, and I might say "library" or "tea." Words as words, at the instant I'm thinking of dialect/borrowings: mensch and bodega are from my home dialect, "shroff" I saw in Hong Kong (I think it's from Hindi, not any of the Chinese languages. And "stoop," which is standard English as a verb, but non-New Yorkers have been puzzled by "we were sitting on the stoop."

Comments

[conuly]

Yeah, well, outside NYC they also inexplicably think you stand *in* a line, so who cares what confuses them? ;)

Actually, serious NYC-ism that I never thought about until somebody pointed it out to me, is cashiers calling for the following customer instead of saying "next". I don't know that they don't do this out of the city, but people have told me they don't, so.

[bibliofile]

Huh, I've never heard the "following" customer, but then I've spent only one weekend in NYC.

The standing on line thing got confusing to non-New Yorkers only after the internet became a thing.

Hey, we do have stoops in Chicago, though in some neighborhoods people don't sit on them. (Some landlords disallow stoop-sitting in the lease, even.)

V, did you know about pampelmousse before the books by Michael Wossname?

[minoanmiss]

This reminds me of when I was four and my favorite word was 'onomatopoeia' because it sounded so cool and of what it meant. Bwee, happy days.

[st_aurafina]

Pampelmousse is such a great word!