tsundoku

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by jandrew

Whining about ad hominem attacks is the last refuge of the whinger.

winning an argument by whining is a fair trade of letters

[QuantumIguana]

Both whining and whinging imply that the complaint is illegitimate. Whining further implies that the illegitimate complaint was done in a certain tone of voice. Grumbling doesn't carry the same implication of illegitimate complaint.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Every language has that

If you liked that book, also check out Adam Jacot de Boinod's books, in particular "The Meaning of Tingo: and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World." Linguists will probably cringe at some of the mistakes in "Tingo," but it's nevertheless an entertaining read.

[QuantumIguana]

If you could really eliminate the concept by eliminating the word, then what about the phenomenon of people struggling to find a word for the concept in their minds?

[Grace Elliot]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

This week's edition of the guardian weekly has in the Books section an article entitled 'Are some words untranslatable?'

One of the words the author (Lucy Greaves) discusses is 'tsundoku', the Japanese word for 'the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piling it up together with other such unread books'.

Don't you wish English had a word like that?

Isn't that a 'TBR' - as in a TBR pile?

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If you could really eliminate the concept by eliminating the word, then what about the phenomenon of people struggling to find a word for the concept in their minds?

Yeah, but you don't get a mob of them, individual nutters are not a problem to society.
Probably goes a little something like this.

<Riot for something without a word>
Gather round everyone, we are going to storm the castle for our right to, err, thingy, you know, oh sod it, I'm going home.
</Riot>

[EndlessWaves]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

'the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piling it up together with other such unread books'.

Abandoning it?

Unless it was never bought to be read, in which case I'd describe it as Decorative.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Yeah, but you don't get a mob of them, individual nutters are not a problem to society.
Probably goes a little something like this.

<Riot for something without a word>
Gather round everyone, we are going to storm the castle for our right to, err, thingy, you know, oh sod it, I'm going home.
</Riot>

I don't think people rally around words. They would find a word soon enough. Dust off some old word that wasn't doing much, and repurpose it. Has a concept actually been eliminated by eliminating a word?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Has a concept actually been eliminated by eliminating a word?

Don't know. Has a word ever been instantly (and utterly) eradicated from a language (and the minds of those who speak it) to test the hypothesis?

[HarryT]

It's rather like telling people "don't think of the word 'Elephant'" .

[Bilbo1967]

Reading this, I can't help thinking about "perestroika" and "glasnost". I know that they're only words, but they did give the concepts behind them a focal point that, arguably, led to their adoption as concepts and not just words?