Untranslatable Words

[zelda_pinwheel]

and when Adrian's happy, everybody happy.

[Cthulhu]

IceHand:

Danke.

By the way, is that "errlehgenduh volmilchsow"?
Do not wish to sound silly for mis-pronounciating my Teutonic phraseology.

@ others:

There seems to be a dearth of true understanding regarding technical phrases in English.

Everyone has missed the ever-important terms

*gucher
*giniffling pin
*dealie

These may be nautical terms that are not used much by farmers, so I apologise if I am unabashedly pointing out an ignorance that does not in reality exist.

[zelda_pinwheel]

We remind our esteemed participants that this is not a "definitions optional" thread. please ensure that all untranslatable words are at the very least explained, if not provided with suitable equivalents in other languages.

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[Taylor514ce]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

- thingamajig
- thingamabob
- whatsit
- whatchamacallit
- doohickey
- doodad

Thanks for this, it brought back pleasant memories of my grandpa teaching me to work on cars. He would often use two or more of those terms in the same sentence.

"Use the doohicky there to turn that thingamabob one good crank thataways. Then you have to jigger that whatchmacallit a few times... naw, really give it a good whammy, it cain't hit back. There you go. Now hand me that doodad, and tell me about that Susy. Kissed her yet?"

Afterwards he'd take me with him to watch him shoot pool, which is how I learned to cuss.

scratch shot
off the eight ball --
the air turns blue

Explans: "Cussing a blue-streak" is an idiom

[Cthulhu]

"Shine the light where I'm looking, D**NIT!"

Is a phrase to which all my friends & I respond in like manner. Ah, fathers, machines, and learning. Three things that absolutely should NEVER be combined.

@Zelda: My apologies. Again, did not want to make anyone feel stupid. Puny, alone in the universe, devoid of hope & meaning yes, but stupid--no.
(wow, coming from Ms. Pinwheel, admonishment feels nearly as good as punishment)

For your Edification:

Gucher-(n) A device, usually electrical in nature, used to create force or a response in another object, such as a dealie

Giniffling Pin(N) The single-most important object on any vessel, terrestrial, space, marine, limnerine, or submarine. No one save the Chief Engineer is allowed access to it. You are really in trouble if that thing is giving you problems. Forget that I mentioned it.

Dealie (n) an object found in mechanical settings used to perform repairs or actions on other malfunctioning objects, e.g. starter motors, VHF Radios, inebriated passengers.

[Taylor514ce]

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

wow, coming from Ms. Pinwheel, admonishment feels nearly as good as punishment.

Here we go off an a tangent, no doubt, but I agree. The sympathetic vibrations set in motion when she stamps her foot make it hard to remember you're being scolded and are supposed to feel bad.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

"Shine the light where I'm looking, D**NIT!"

Is a phrase to which all my friends & I respond in like manner. Ah, fathers, machines, and learning. Three things that absolutely should NEVER be combined.

@Zelda: My apologies. Again, did not want to make anyone feel stupid. Puny, alone in the universe, devoid of hope & meaning yes, but stupid--no.
(wow, coming from Ms. Pinwheel, admonishment feels nearly as good as punishment)

For your Edification:

Gucher-(n) A device, usually electrical in nature, used to create force or a response in another object, such as a dealie

Giniffling Pin(N) The single-most important object on any vessel, terrestrial, space, marine, limnerine, or submarine. No one save the Chief Engineer is allowed access to it. You are really in trouble if that thing is giving you problems. Forget that I mentioned it.

Dealie (n) an object found in mechanical settings used to perform repairs or actions on other malfunctioning objects, e.g. starter motors, VHF Radios, inebriated passengers.

that's better.

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Here we go off an a tangent, no doubt, but I agree. The sympathetic vibrations set in motion when she stamps her foot make it hard to remember you're being scolded and are supposed to feel bad.

[IceHand]

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

IceHand:

Danke.

By the way, is that "errlehgenduh volmilchsow"?
Do not wish to sound silly for mis-pronounciating my Teutonic phraseology.

You're welcome. And, uhm, yes, it's pronounced something like "ire-leh-gen-duh voll-milch-sow". The "g" as in "great", the "ch"-sound does not exist in English – here's an example of "die Milch": http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e-at-Milch.ogg

[IceHand]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

ha, this must be a made-up word as well then, it comes from "vergnatz" (it means sulk or be angry, i think) + "Teufel" (devil) ; a long time ago a german friend of mine gave me a little red toy devil and told me it was a "Gnatz-Teufel", and i could let it have all my bad moods and keep only the good moods for myself.

I see. It must be a local thing, because I don't even know the word "vergnatz". Thanks for the explanation though.

[Cthulhu]

Plantagenet?

I'll die before I see the son of York set on the English countryside!

To Armed Tentacles my minions!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by IceHand

I see. It must be a local thing, because I don't even know the word "vergnatz". Thanks for the explanation though.

heh... and here i thought it was at least a compound of legitimate words... my friend is from Dresden, what region are you from ? if Germany is anything like france, regional slang can be so different from one place to another as to be virtually incomprehensible. and i'm not even talking about dialects... 50 years ago, a grandpa from one village wouldn't understand a grandpa from the next village over.

[IceHand]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

heh... and here i thought it was at least a compound of legitimate words... my friend is from Dresden, what region are you from ? if Germany is anything like france, regional slang can be so different from one place to another as to be virtually incomprehensible. and i'm not even talking about dialects... 50 years ago, a grandpa from one village wouldn't understand a grandpa from the next village over.

I'm from Schleswig-Holstein near the Danish border. Since last year I'm studying in Marburg, Hessen and I've only noticed some small regional differences with the people I've met here – and they are from all around Germany.
We use some slang words in Schleswig-Holstein though that are not well known in the rest of Germany (like "schnacken" and "moin").

[zelda_pinwheel]

hmm, very mysterious... well if you meet anyone from Dresden, ask them if they've ever heard of this word. if not, it must mean that my friend made it up.

[IceHand]

I will

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by mores

We can continue with the german for a long time, but it get's boring quite fast.
flugzeug - fly thing (airplane)
fahrzeug - drive thing (vehicle)
feuerzeug - fire thing (lighter)
Germans got lots of things

In Luxembourg, when you're really pissed at someone you say
Ech kenn him mam aarsch an d'gesiet sprangen - I could jump with my ass into his face

And a really nice expression that I picked up in Montreal, Canada is Asti de tabarnak ... carries weight like the f-word, but means housel tabernacle.

It is not a nice expression. It is the worst despicable swear. If it were in English it would be banned from MR. Please refrain from using.

If you go back to Montréal, never say "Montréal Canada" say "Montréal Québec" ... If you value your teeth.

(I took the liberty of correcting the spelling for ya)

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

are you really going to make me and squid-bucket do all the heavy lifting in this thread ?

all right, this one probably *does* have some equivalent (if only colloquially, in which case i get two shots with one stone right ?) but i couldn't immediately think of one and i just used it, so here you are, go crazy :

petite nature litterally it means "small nature", it's used to describe someone who is faint of heart (ha, oops, i guess it actually does have a pretty good translation...) and cannot stomach gory movies, getting blood drawn, injections, spiders... you get the idea. perhaps you can think of some better translations.

Here, "petite nature" is derogatory and similar to "sissy".