GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Tante Shvester on July 25, 2011, 08:18:11 AM
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For all you folk who speak other languages, answer me these:
What do you call goosebumps?
What do you call a fly swatter?
Do you have a word for that little indentation in the spot between your upper lip and your nose? (I'm amazed that English doesn't have a common word for something that is smack dab in the middle of your face. We do have an uncommon word -- philtrum-- but it's, um, not that common. It will score you big points in Scrabble, though.)
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In Japanese, goosebups are 鳥肌 - "bird skin." A fly swatter is a "ハエ叩き"- a "fly hitter." Sorry those are not so interesting. Pretty sure they don't have a common word for the philtrum. I looked it up in the dictionary and they said it's just called "under the nose."
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Oh, and I had to look it up in French but it reminded me that I had heard it before - chair de poule, or chicken flesh. And flyswatter is tapette à mouches - a hitter for flies. Sorry the world's vocabulary isn't more exciting.
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Oh! Looks like the French have a more common word (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philtrum) for philtrum. It's l'arc de Cupidon, or "Cupid's bow." Kind of cute.
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In Portuguese, it's mata mosca or fly hitter.
For goosebumps, the word is arrepio, which also means shivers or creeps.
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It's l'arc de Cupidon, or "Cupid's bow." Kind of cute.
"Cupid's bow" is what I've always heard it called in English.
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So have I, although it's mildly obsolete.
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I don't know why there should be a common word for it in English (more common than "Cupid's bow" or "philtrum", that is)—it's not something commonly talked about, is it?
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Maybe it used to be. Historical novels and novels written 50-150 years ago are the main place I'm accustomed to seeing "cupid's bow" -- but in those, it comes up with some frequency.
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*ahem*. Historical novels, eh?
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:P Yes.
Some are historical romance, but not all are. And the ones written 50-150 definitely aren't.
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Google Books implies that "cupid's bow" as a phrase referring to a bit of the face is commonly used in two fields:
- plastic surgery
- makeup artist
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Maybe people don't talk about it because they don't have a good word for it. But then again, English doesn't have a word for mother-in-law, and we talk about that all the time.
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Compound words are still words.
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Yup. And people don't generally let the lack of a word or phrase stop them from talking about things they want to talk about. They find ways to talk about them anyway, whether it's circumlocution or coining new words.
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That's what a Cupid's Bow is? Huh. I thought it meant you had lips like a silent movie actress. Although I guess it would be that little dent thing that gives the lips that shape.
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Upon searching for photos of what I was thinking of, it seems I must have mixed Cupid's Bow with Clara Bow.
(http://thetfs.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/clara-bow-still-1077-%C3%97-1500-460x250.jpg)
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Maybe people don't talk about it because they don't have a good word for it.
Nope. People don't talk about it because they don't have anything to say about it.
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Upon searching for photos of what I was thinking of, it seems I must have mixed Cupid's Bow with Clara Bow.
:D
That's awesome.
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A feature that is very prized in a certain era will eventually become something only older people talk about. So being "tight" will someday be regarded as we regard "groovy". Unless groovy is back in and I didn't get the memo. And now that tight has filtered down to my level people have probably stopped using it.
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I don't buy the idea of "untranslatable" words. Just because it takes a paragraph to explain saudades in English doesn't mean it's untranslatable. It means we use a paragraph to translate it.
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Depending on the context, that's functionally indistinguishable from untranslatable.
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I thought a Cupid's Bow was the shape of the upper lip, not the groove running perpendicular to it.
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I think Jesse's right.
link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid's_bow)
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That's a sig if I ever saw one.
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Gurl (native Peruvian) says that goosebumps might be escalo frio (really, "chills"), flyswatter is mata mosca, and that philtrum might begin with a P, and she's also working on the Quechua word for it.
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Mata means slaughter in Arabic. Flyslaughter sounds like a useful spell in Harry Potter.
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It means kills in Spanish too.
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It also means plant (the noun) in Spanish. :p
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Interesting. Now that's some etymology I'd like explained.
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Unrelated. When it's a verb spelled that way, it's inflected. The root of the word is different.
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Which word? Matar?
http://www.studyspanish.com/accents/rules.htm
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What do they call people from Phoenix, Arizona? Phoenicians?
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Yes. See the sidebar at the top right of the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona).
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What do they call people from Phoenix, Arizona? Phoenicians?
That's what my brother and SIL say.
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We should start calling folks from Provo, Provosts.
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We really should.
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Speaking of Provo, have you guys heard that Kia has a concept car called the Provo (http://www.autoblog.com/2013/03/08/provo-concept-name-has-kia-embroiled-in-terrorism-controversy/)? Apparently it's controversial because "Provo" is a nickname for members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
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Man, I don't like terrorism, but Provo as a name is getting cooler all the time.
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I am still wondering whether we can get Rexbourgeois and Rexbourgeoisie to catch on.
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Oh! Looks like the French have a more common word (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philtrum) for philtrum. It's l'arc de Cupidon, or "Cupid's bow." Kind of cute.
I always heard it called "La marque de l'ange". It comes from a story saying that before babies are born, they remember where they were before being conceived (Paradize?). When they are born their guardian angel puts his finger on their lips and say "shush", making them forget everything.
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I wonder if that's why the French hymnal has Souviens Toi while the English hymnal doesn't.
http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2006/12/souviens-toi-mon-enfant-remember-my.html (http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2006/12/souviens-toi-mon-enfant-remember-my.html)
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It comes from a story saying that before babies are born, they remember where they were before being conceived (Paradize?). When they are born their guardian angel puts his finger on their lips and say "shush", making them forget everything.
That comes from the Gemara. Only the Jewish version has them being taught the entire Torah while in the womb, and then tapped on the mouth to make them forget as they are born.
(I've heard there's a version from Plato as well, but I've never seen it in any of his writings.)
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I wonder if that's why the French hymnal has Souviens Toi while the English hymnal doesn't.
http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2006/12/souviens-toi-mon-enfant-remember-my.html (http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2006/12/souviens-toi-mon-enfant-remember-my.html)
Except Souviens-Toi, while lovely, was written by Mormons, so I don't see it dating far enough back to have anything in common with the saying.