Which word from another language do you need in your language?

[Valka D'Ur]

Overmorrow seems like an oversight, but nobody seems to care

I literally never heard of this word until you mentioned it, so it's hard to care about the absence of a word I hadn't known existed.

 

[warpus]

That's how it works though, doesn't it? If your native language doesn't use a certain word for some concept, you won't know about it unless somebody points it out to you.

Maybe it just seems obvious to me that such a word should be in use, since I like efficiency.. and grew up using this word all the time. Plus when that "Day after Tomorrow" movie came out the title seemed especially stupid to me. Since it's a stupid title to begin with, but it also seems unnecessarily wordy. It's like saying: "Hey pass me 1 more pen than 2 pens"

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That's how it works though, doesn't it? If your native language doesn't use a certain word for some concept, you won't know about it unless somebody points it out to you.

Maybe it just seems obvious to me that such a word should be in use, since I like efficiency.. and grew up using this word all the time. Plus when that "Day after Tomorrow" movie came out the title seemed especially stupid to me. Since it's a stupid title to begin with, but it also seems unnecessarily wordy. It's like saying: "Hey pass me 1 more pen than 2 pens"

Honestly, if a movie were to come out with the title of "Overmorrow", the collective reaction would be "Huh? What does that mean, is it some fantasy thing?"

 

[warpus]

Honestly, if a movie were to come out with the title of "Overmorrow", the collective reaction would be "Huh? What does that mean, is it some fantasy thing?"

That's my exact point, that English no longer has a word to describe this concept.

 

[Hrothbern]

We have in Dutch as normal words:
morgen (tomorrow), overmorgen (the day after tomorrow) and (less frequent) overovermorgen (two days after tomorrow)
and the same backwards:
gisteren (yesterday) and then eergisteren and eereergisteren.
All six written as one word, although over-overmorgen is also used.

And checking back on English on internet: English does have the word ereyesterday, probably as or even more archaic as overmorrow.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That's my exact point, that English no longer has a word to describe this concept.

Okay, Wiktionary says it was used in 1535 and is considered "archaic." Its antonym is "ereyesterday" (day before yesterday), which is considered obsolete.

Hm. I might sneak these words into my ongoing NaNoWriMo project. They're 500 years after the story, but since the game developers already put in references to Richard III, Little Red Riding Hood, and the late Duke of Ulmer wears suspenders 800 years before they were invented, I guess a couple of obsolete words wouldn't matter much.

 

[warpus]

Hmm. ereyesterday seems messy. In Polish "the day before yesterday" is simply a merging of "before" and "yesterday", and "the day after tomorrow" is simply a merging of "after" and "tomorrow". German has words for both of these concepts as well I believe, so I wonder what exactly lead to them getting dropped from English.

I bet those who grew up their whole lives not using terms like these are thinking: "Would anyone even use these words if we had them? Why not just say the day name?". *Shrug*. I grew up using these terms, they come in handy. Nothing mindblowingly revolutionary, but the words get used.

 

[red_elk]

German has words for both of these concepts as well I believe, so I wonder what exactly lead to them getting dropped from English.

Yes, it was mentioned on previous page. We've been discussing both words in German and Russian, just 3 posts before you wrote about them in Polish

 

[warpus]

That's what I get for not following the whole thread

 

[Gori the Grey]

We have a separate word for calendar day too, though I don't think it's much needed in English

Maybe not in English in general, but this one particular English user wishes there were different words for calendar day and daytime.

 

[red_elk]

Maybe not in English in general, but this one particular English user wishes there were different words for calendar day and daytime.

We call it "sutki" in Russian. The word has apparently Slavic origin, related to the word "styk" which means something like "connection" (of day and night).

 

[Hygro]

Spanish has ánimo which is the get-up-an-go energy. It usually translates to “brave” or similar which gives brave a physical connotation I enjoy but still misses the mark.

We use the word “rally” to mean more or less the same thing but it’s more slangy than its Spanish equivalent.

Similarly, tranquilo vs chill. One is proper language to mean what we use as slang.

 

[J-man]

Sibling, Dutch has no word for sibling. We have brother & sister of course (broer, zus) but English has sibling and German has geschwister. Why is missing from the Dutch language.

On the otherhand Englis could use a word for Gezellig, it is very difficult to translate correctly.

 

[GinandTonic]

One the daylight, 24h thing, we really need a word to differentiate between working week and 7 day week. Try explaining the difference to an illiterate unemployed refugee farmer over skype during lock down.

"One" is very old fashioned but it does allow us to denote a plural "I". Most of the terms to denote a pleural we literally mean a plural you and assume masculine gender - guys, chaps. But they get crowbarred in to cover the gaps.

@Warpuss "Mate." The rest of the Anglophone world is united in the belief that there is a word to describe a relationship between a close friend and an acquaintance. North America is just a weird refusenik outlier.

 

[Hygro]

Sibling, Dutch has no word for sibling. We have brother & sister of course (broer, zus) but English has sibling and German has geschwister. Why is missing from the Dutch language.

On the otherhand Englis could use a word for Gezellig, it is very difficult to translate correctly.

This is a problem in Spanish as well. You can't be like, "so long kid", you end up saying like "see you later, girl child" and it kills the vibe.

Gezellig is a good one.

 

[Sofista]

In Polish we have a word for "The day after tomorrow". I've been told that English used to have such a word (overmorrow), but y'all threw it away. Why? What's wrong with you?

In the same vein, "The day before yesterday". There is no English word for this as far as I know (but correct me if I'm wrong).

In Polish it's also possible to say "the day after the day after tomorrow" in one word. Nobody in English would say "the day after the day after tomorrow" cause it's so wordy. Makes more sense to just say "Saturday" or whatever. In Polish we can name the day (i.e. Saturday) or say "the day after the day after tomorrow" in one word. Options!

These are not super important, but it does seem a bit weird that English doesn't have words in use for the first 2 examples at least.

English also doesn't seem to have a word for "Enjoy yo meal!". The French use "Bon appetit" of course, and we have "Smacznego" in Polish, but in English.. there doesn't seem to be a word for this. People are forced to use words from other languages for this purpose. How barbaric

In Polish we also have this word "kombinowac" which means something like "to scheme/hack", but not quite. It's almost like.. if you are scheming something, or trying to figure something out. "McGyvering it" is the closest translation I can think of, although that's not quite right either. This word almost literally means "to try different combinations", to give you more context on the meaning.

I should add that in Polish the words for Home and House are the same. Which isn't really that annoying, as it always seems blatantly obvious which one is meant w/ the proper context in place.

For comparison, we do have single words for both "The day before yesterday" and "the day after the day after tomorrow". "The day after the day after tomorrow": technically. Just like we used to have a word for "the day before yesterday", only I haven't seen them being used in decades - especially the latter.

"Buon appetito" is not only a loan word, it's (to us) wrong table matters. A meal should start with sprezzatura: quietly and effortlessly. One wasn't supposed to come to a convivial meal starving, it was more about company and conversation.

"La combine"! When two sports teams silently agree that drawing is best for both (to North American pals: this is best understood in a context where relegations and draws are concrete realities).

To take a clue from German, you're talking about your Haus(e) vs. your Heimat, I believe?

 

[amadeus]

I can’t think of words off the top of my head but Japanese does a good job of compressing language in context. Came across a headline with this: 米原潜

米 American
原 nuclear
潜 submarine

Anyway, I gotta go to the dentist!

 

[Hrothbern]

What I do not understand about the use of bon appeti, buon appetito, etc is why would you wish that people get a better appetite for the food ???
I find it much more natural to wish other people at the table to enjoy the food !
With wishing good appetite it seems to me that you say: sorry the food is not really tasty but if you are hungry enough and have good appetite in food, the food you get will do the job of nourishing you.

In Dutch the normal expression is "eet smakelijk" or "smakelijk eten" meaning "eat tasty" or "tasty eating" (the subjunctive).
The short version is simply "eet ze" more comparable with the German use of Mahlzeit (meal) that you use on the table but also if you pass a table where people are eating.

After the meal, the informal end after which people are free to leave the table, the now increasingly archaic expression was: "moge het u wel bekomen". IDK how to translate that properly, but something like: "may the food be good for you" and also "may it not cause digestion issues".

 

[amadeus]

If you want it to sound even more German, when you say “eet ze meal,” add “or else.”

 

[Hrothbern]

If you want it to sound even more German, when you say “eet ze meal,” add “or else.”

The house rule of my parents for us as kids was:
"Eat your plate empty or else you may not leave the table"
I had never issues with that, more with the cooking pan (straight on the table) being too fast empty. But my little sissy was always struggling with some of the vegetables. My sissy sitting sometimes until bedtime on the table... my parents had no mercy there... the war hunger winter of '44-'45 was their argument.

Another interesting German word and custom (the Dutch version "hoi allemaal" rhyming on meal Mahl):

When you write an email to for example a group of (relatively close) colleagues would you start with: "hi together" ?

If you want to evade the "Dear colleagues"... I guess it will more be like "hi all", "hi everyone".
Not in German with "hallo zusammen".