I Never Knew There Was a Word For It

by Adam Jacot De Boinod

kabaddi (Pakistan) a game where players take it in turn to hold their breath

  bakpi (Ulwa, Nicaragua) a game in which one is swung round in circles until dizzy

  cnapan (Welsh) a game where each side tries to drive a wooden ball as far as possible in one direction

  kula’i wawae (Hawaiian) the pushing of one’s feet against others while seated

  kaengurustylte (Danish) a pogo stick (literally, kangaroo stilt)

  Frozen walrus carcass

  There are games that are highly specific to their culture and environment, such as the Inuit igunaujannguaq, which literally means frozen walrus carcass. This is a game where the person in the centre tries to remain stiff and is held in place by the feet of the people who are sitting in a circle. He is passed around the ring, hand over hand. Whoever drops him is the next ‘frozen walrus carcass’.

  Honing your skills

  As we grow up, what we look for in a game becomes increasingly challenging:

  shash-andaz (Persian) someone who tries to juggle with six balls so that four are always in the air

  antyaksari (Hindi) a pastime in which participants recite verses in turn, the first word of each new verse being the same as the last of the preceding one

  kipapa (Hawaiian) to balance on top of a surfboard

  waterponie (Afrikaans) a jet ski

  elastikspring (Danish) bungee jumping

  The beautiful game

  One game in particular has achieved international pre-eminence, and a range of closely observed terms to describe it:

  armario (Spanish) an awkward or unskilled player (literally, a wardrobe)

  wayra jayt’a (Quechuan, Peru) a poor player (literally, an air kicker)

  cazar (Spanish) to kick one’s opponent and not the ball

  ariete (Spanish) a battering ram (centre forward)

  verkac (Turkish) passing and running

  baile, danze (Spanish) and

  melina (Italian) two players on the same team kicking the ball back and forth to kill time

  roligan (Danish) a non-violent supporter

  Taking a punt

  Sometimes, fun is not enough; chance or expertise has to be made more exciting by speculation:

  yetu (Tulu, India) gambling in which a coin is tossed and a bet laid as to which side it will fall on

  quiniela (Spanish, USA) a form of betting in which the punter must choose the first and second-place winners in a race, though not necessarily in the correct order

  parani (Cook Islands Maori) to put up a stake at poker without examining one’s cards

  The moral perhaps being that it’s better to be the Persian kuz-baz, one who lends money to gamblers, than a mukhtir, one who risks his property in gambling.

  Fingers crossed

  Some people are born lechero, a Latin American Spanish word for lucky, literally meaning a milkman. Others may be less fortunate:

  smolař (Czech) a person dogged by bad luck

  apes (Indonesian) to have double bad luck

  kualat (Indonesian) to be bound to have bad luck as a result of behaving badly

  Break a leg

  It’s intriguing that wishing people good luck often takes the form of willing ill fortune on them. The German Hals und Beinbruch, for example, takes the spirit of the English expression ‘break a leg’ and goes one step further – it translates as ‘break your neck and a leg’. The Italians offer an even more gruesome prospect: the cheery wish in bocca al lupo means ‘into the mouth of the wolf’.

  The competitive streak

  Everyone likes to win, but the methods employed to get ahead range from the inventive to the underhand:

  chupar rueda (Spanish) running or cycling behind another to benefit from reduced wind resistance (literally, to suck wheel)

  kunodesme (Ancient Greek) tying a string round the foreskin to stop the penis getting in the way during athletics (literally, putting the dog on a lead)

  sirind (Persian) entangling legs in wrestling to trip your opponent (also a noose for catching prey by the foot)

  poki (Cook Islands Maori) to deal cards from the bottom of the pack (i.e. unfairly)

  False friends

  boghandel (Danish) bookshop

  rain (Arabic) viewer, spectator

  arse (Turkish) violin bow

  jerk (French) praise for an accomplished dancer

  pensel (Swedish) paintbrush

  catch (French) all-in wrestling

  Crooning

  For those without sporting interest or prowess, entertainment can be found in the realms of music …

  iorram (Scottish Gaelic) a rowing song

  dizlanmak (Turkish) to keep humming to yourself

  Ohrwurm (German) a catchy tune that gets stuck in the brain or rapidly obsesses an entire population (literally, an ear worm)

  ngak-ngik-ngok (Indonesian) a derogatory reference to the popularity of rock music in the 1960s (which was much despised by the late President Sukarno)

  Twirling

  … or of dancing

  raspar canillas (Spanish, Central America) to dance (literally, to scrape shins)

  zapateado (Spanish) the fast footwork and stamping feet used in dancing

  mbuki-mvuki (Bantu, Zaire) to take off one’s clothes in order to dance

  Ball paradox (German) a ball at which women ask men to dance

  verbunkos (Hungarian) a dance performed to persuade people to enlist in the army

  Clubbing

  The Italians helpfully differentiate between the staff outside and inside a night club: the buttadentro, the one who throws you in, is the person in charge of choosing who gets through the door; while the buttafuori, the one who throws you out, is the bouncer.

  Channel surfing

  For those who prefer to stay at home, there’s always the television, or Pantoffelkino (slippers cinema), as it’s described in German. The Romani language of the Gypsies takes a rather sterner view, regarding it as a dinnilos-dicking-muktar, or fool’s looking-box. Those with extra channels seem to be viewed as a cut-above in France, where cablé has now acquired the secondary sense of ‘hip and trendy’.

  Hi-tech

  Having invented numerous machines to give us free time, we now struggle to come up with others to help fill it:

  tamagotchi (Japanese) a lovable egg (an electronic device which copies the demands for food or attention of a pet)

  khali khukweni (Zulu) a mobile phone (literally, to make a noise in the pocket)

  dingdong (Indonesian) computer games in an arcade

  toelva (Icelandic) a computer (formed from the words for digit and prophetess)

  xiaoxia (Chinese) small lobsters (new internet users)

  The arts

  There are some pastimes that are elevated, by their practitioners and admirers, onto an altogether higher plane:

  sprezzatura (Italian) the effortless technique of a great artist

  wabi (Japanese) a flawed detail that enhances the elegance of the whole work of art

  ostranenie (Russian) the process by which art makes familiar perceptions seem strange

  Verfremdungseffekt (German) a dramatic technique that encourages the audience to preserve a sense of critical detachment from a play (literally, an alienating effect)

  Philistines

  Those who aren’t impressed by artistic claims have coined a different vocabulary:

  megillah (Yiddish) an unnecessarily long and tiresome story or letter

  de pacotilla (Spanish) a third-rate writer or actor

  Rolling up

  In our health-conscious world, can smoking still be regarded as recreation?

  segatura (Italian) a cigarette made by mixing cigarette butts (literally, sawdust)

  bakwe (Kapampangan, Philippines) to smoke a cigarette with the lit end in the mouth

  nakurit’sya (Russian) to smoke to one’s heart’s content

  zakurit’sya (Russian) to make oneself ill by excessive smoking

  On reflection

  Married
in a brothel

  Some words must remain a mystery to all except native speakers. You would have had to have lived in these places for quite a while to understand how to use correctly some of the following, which in their simply translated definitions contain what seem to us contradictory meanings:

  hay kulu (Zarma, Nigeria) anything, nothing and also everything

  irpadake (Tulu, India) ripe and unripe

  sitoshna (Tulu, India) cold and hot

  merripen (Romani, Gypsy) life and death

  gift (Norwegian) poison and married

  magazinshchik (Russian) a shopkeeper and a shoplifter

  danh t (Vietnamese) a church and a brothel

  aloha (Hawaiian) hello and goodbye (the word has many other meanings including love, compassion, welcome and good wishes)

  Eating and Drinking

  olcsó húsnak híg a leve (Hungarian)

  cheap meat produces thin gravy

  Hunting, shooting …

  In many parts of the world putting together a meal isn’t always simply a matter of making a quick trip to the local supermarket:

  ortektes (Khakas, Siberia) to hunt together for ducks

  geragai (Malay) a hook for catching crocodiles

  sumpit (Malay) to shoot with a blowpipe

  tu’utu’u (Rapa Nui, Easter Island) to hit the mark time and again (shooting with arrows)

  ajawy (Wayampi, Brazil) to hit the wrong target

  … and fishing

  Fishing can be equally labour-intensive:

  ta’iti (Cook Islands Maori) to catch fish by encircling a rock with a net and frightening them out

  kapau’u (Hawaiian) to drive fish into a waiting net by splashing or striking the water with a leafy branch

  lihnaka inska wauhwaia (Ulwa, Nicaragua) to slap the water and cause the fish to jump into a boat

  nono (Rapa Nui, Easter Island) fish thrown onto the beach by the waves or which jump out of the water into a boat

  kusyad (Persian) hard black stone thrown into the water to attract fish

  fiskevaer (Norwegian) good weather for fishing

  ah chamseyah chay (Chorti, Guatemala) someone who fishes with dynamite

  pau heoheo (Hawaiian) a person who returns from fishing without any fish

  Global gastronomy

  When it comes to the extraordinary things that people around the world enjoy putting in their mouths, it’s certainly true that one man’s meat is another man’s poison:

  ptsha (Yiddish) cow’s feet in jelly

  poronkieli (Finnish) reindeer tongue

  kokorec (Turkish) roasted sheep’s intestines

  nama-uni (Japanese) raw sea urchin

  Beuschel (German) stewed calves’ lungs

  acitron (Mexican Spanish) candied cactus

  somad (Sherpa, Nepal) cheese that is old and smelly

  calimocho (Spanish) a combination of Coca-Cola and red wine

  Gummiadler (German) tough roast chicken (literally, rubber eagle)

  marilopotes (Ancient Greek) a gulper of coal dust

  ampo (Malay) edible earth

  Menu envy

  In some cases, though, it’s the unfamiliar word rather than the food itself that may alarm the outsider:

  flab (Gaelic) a mushroom

  moron (Welsh) a carrot

  aardappel (Dutch) a potato (literally, earth apple)

  bikini (Spanish) a toasted ham and cheese sandwich

  gureepufuruutsu (Japanese) a grapefruit

  Can’t cook …

  We all know the benefits of lumur (Malay), smearing ingredients with fat during cooking. But even that doesn’t always prevent kanzo (Hausa, Nigeria), burnt food stuck to the bottom of the pot. Perhaps it would help to know the right moment for nisar-qararat (Persian), cold water poured into a pot to stop it getting burnt. The only failsafe way of escaping this is to buy your food boli boli (Aukan, Suriname) – already cooked.

  Bon appetit

  Now we’re ready to eat …

  protintheuo (Ancient Greek) to pick out the dainty bits beforehand, to help oneself first

  muka (Hawaiian) a smacking sound with the lips, indicating that the food is tasty

  pakupaku (Japanese) to eat in big mouthfuls or take quick bites

  parmaklamak (Turkish) to eat with one’s fingers

  sikkiwok (Inuit) to drink with your chin in the water

  nusarat (Persian) crumbs falling from a table which are picked up and eaten as an act of piety

  Boring food

  The Japanese are emphatic about how dull food can be: suna o kamu yo na means ‘like chewing sand’. They even have an evocative term for rehashed food: nibansenji, meaning ‘brewing tea for the second time using the same tea-leaves’.

  Cupboard love

  Those who have food on the table will always be popular:

  giomlaireachd (Scottish Gaelic) the habit of dropping in at meal times

  aimerpok (Inuit) to visit expecting to receive food

  luqma-shumar (Persian) one who attends feasts uninvited and counts the number of mouthfuls

  Snap, crackle, pop!

  Is it the way they hear it? Or is it simply what sells the product? The sound of Rice Crispies crackling and popping is very different across Europe:

  French: Cric! Crac! Croc!

  German: Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!

  Spanish: Cris! Cras! Cros!

  Rice

  In Japan, gohan (literally, honourable food) comes in a bowl and means rice that is ready for eating. But it’s also a general name for rice and even extends in meaning to ‘meal’. At the other end of the spectrum is okoge, which is the scorched rice stuck on the bottom of the pan.

  False friends

  prune (French) plum

  gin (Phrygian, Turkey) to dry out

  korn (Swedish) barley

  sik (Ukrainian) juice

  glass (Swedish) ice cream

  prick (Thai) pepper

  chew (Amharic, Ethiopia) salt

  Hawaiian bananas

  Hawaii’s traditional cuisine is based on quite a restricted list of ingredients: fish (there are 65 words alone for describing fishing nets), sweet potato (108 words), sugarcane (42) and bananas (47). The following are among the most descriptive words for this fruit:

  mai’a kaua lau a banana, dark green when young, and yellow and waxy when mature

  kapule a banana hanging until its skin has black spots

  palaku a thoroughly ripe banana

  maui to wring the stem of a bunch of bananas to cause it to ripen

  pola the hanging down of the blossom of a banana palm or a bunch of bananas

  halane a large bunch of bananas

  hua’alua a double bunch of bananas

  manila a banana tree not used for fruit but for rope fibre

  lele a tall wild banana placed near the altar, offered to the gods and also used for love magic

  Replete

  As the meal enters its final stages, a sense of well-being descends on the diner – unless, of course, you’re suffering from bersat (Malay), food that has gone down the wrong way …

  uitbuiken (Dutch) to take your time at dinner, relaxing between courses (literally, the expansion of the stomach)

  nakkele (Tulu, India) a man who licks whatever the food has been served on

  slappare (Italian) to eat everything, even to the point of licking the plate

  ’akapu’aki’aki (Cook Islands Maori) to belch repeatedly

  Post-prandial

  After it’s all over, what are you left with?

  femlans (Ullans, Northern Ireland) the remains of a meal

  sunasorpok (Inuit) to eat the remains of others’ food

  shitta (Persian) food left at night and eaten in the morning

  Food poisoning

  Visitors to Easter Island would be advised to distinguish between the Rapa Nui words hakahana (leaving cooked food for another day) and kai hakahana (food from the previous day that is starting to rot).

 
Hunger

  Food cannot always be taken for granted. Homowo is a Ghanaian word that means ‘hooting at hunger’. Local oral tradition recalls a distant past when the rains failed and there was a terrible famine on the Accra Plains, the home of the Ga people. When a good harvest finally came and there was more than enough to eat once again, the Ghanaians celebrated by holding a festival, still celebrated to this day, that ridiculed hunger.

  Daily Bread

  Food often figures in colloquial sayings and proverbs, as this selection from Spain shows:

  quien con hambre se acuesta con pan suena whoever goes to bed hungry dreams of bread (to have a bee in one’s bonnet)

  agua fría y pan caliente, nunca hicieron buen vientre cold water and hot bread never made a good belly (oil and water never mix)

  pan tierno y leña verde, la casa pierde fresh bread and green firewood lose the house (two wrongs do not make a right)

  vale bolillo it’s worth a piece of bread (it doesn’t matter)

  con su pan se lo coma may he eat it with bread (good luck to him)

  Quenched

  After all this talk of food and eating, it’s hard not to feel thirsty: