Word for today: anthrosylvan
Relating to the relationship between humanity and forests
Word for today: gigil
A Tagalog word recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary, generally meaning the fidgety feeling one gets with strong emotion, most often (but not necessarily) upon seeing something cute. Cuteness aggression is a form of gigil, possibly as well as squeeing and glomping, although Filipino sources note that gigil can also be caused by frustration or anger
Pronounced “ghee-gil” (not “jee-gil”) and can be used as an adjective or noun.
Etymology of some insults they used to use in family-friendly media to replace swearing:
- Sleazebag: meaningless combination of sleaze (a back-formation from sleazy, which originally referred to cloth that was too thin) + bag, although I guess that would mean it could technically be a term for a low-quality sack
- Scuzzbag: less common than the others or its siblings scuzzball or scuzzbucket, it’s totally meaningless, scuzzy being apparently a fusion of scummy and sleazy (or fuzzy or lousy)
- Scumbag: a used condom
- While slimebag is also meaningless, a slimeball is a wad of mucus created by larval liver flukes
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Also please tell me where you're from, cos I hear on Tumblr that this phrase is Aussie but I'm Aussie and it doesn't sound fucking Aussie to me. Do foreigners know this? This just seems like a normal fucking sentence.
I notice none of you have told me where youre from, so first of all, disappointed
But secondly of all, what that fuck are you all talking about? Since no one said otherwise, imma assume this is common internationally and you're all just specifically not culturally engaged with your peers. No way first come blessed dressed is aussie slang. It's too normal
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fun fact about languages: a linguist who was studying aboriginal languages of Australia finally managed to track down a native speaker of the Mbabaram language in the 60s for his research. they talked a bit and he started by asking for the Mbabaram word for basic nouns. They went back and forth before he asked for the word for “dog” The man replied “dog” They had a bit of a “who’s on first” moment before realizing that, by complete coincidence, Mbabaram and English both have the exact same word for dog.
on a similar note, a traditional Ojibwe greeting is “Nanaboozhoo” so when the French first landed in southern Canada they thought that they were saying “Bonjour!” Which is fucking wild to think about. Imagine crossing the ocean and the first people you meet in months somehow speak French.
Given that we famously don’t know the origin of the English word “dog”, I have decided to adopt an utterly batshit folk etymology conspiracy theory. As a treat.
For a while I just assumed that the English “potluck”, was derived from Chinook Jargon “potlatch”. Both describe comparable practices of guests contributing resources to a larger community-wide feast. But a little digging quickly reveals no etymological relation; instead of one, I got TWO! interesting linguistic insights into distinct cultures.
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So I was reading this work from the mid 17th century and was struck by its use of "peevish" and looked it up:
"So it basically means whatever," I thought. Then I hit the usage notes section, and it agreed.
Oh, also checked in on a character having a lot of spleen, and apparently it can mean either you're spiteful or merry or melancholic or whimsical or an asshole
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Reading a book about the linguistics of swearing
- Even linguists aren’t entirely sure how to diagram the sentence “fuck you”
- Similarly intensifiers like “fucking” and “freaking” seem to be their own class of word that doesn’t work quite like an adjective or an adverb
- They have identified a new class of word/phrase called a “squatative” with the bizarre feature of meaning the same thing in the positive or the negative (ie “you know squat” means the same as “you don’t know squat”; see also “jack shit” and “fuck all”)
The book is “What the F” by Benjamin Bergen. It’s interesting BUT he takes the position that slurs are just another kind of swear that can be thrown around freely in a book like this, so for example when classifying swears into religion, sex, bodily functions, and slurs, he refers to this as his “Holy Fucking Shit N***** System” (my asterisks, not his) and like. Benjamin. I know this is a linguistic scientific treatment of taboo language and all but was that really necessary
Word for today: bitch eating crackers
A person you extremely dislike, such that anything they do pisses you off. Apparently totally normal since the late 2010s but I've never heard it, is there a particular culture or space it's from? All three of these citations are from self-published online romance novels.
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Mapped - what do Britons call the game where you knock on someone’s door and run away?
by mattsmithetc/reddit
Source: reddit.com