The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-18, 17:14

feisty crumbles - apparently, some kind of Southern (Texas?)-style vegan ground beef
pick-up sticks, pick-a-stick - basically Jenga, but with sticks instead of blocks. I think I've actually played this before.
വിനയം [ʋiˈnejəm] - discipline, gentleness, humility

According to my dad, as far as I understood what he told me today:
ഏഷണി [ˈjeːʃəɳi] - gossip
കുന്നായ്മ [kunˈnaːjma] - colloquial equivalent of the above
സല്ലാപം [səlˈlaːbəm] - casual conversation, or conversation between people who are less socially important (I thought this was the word for 'gossip', but apparently not, and this is a relatively formal word)
സംഭാഷണം [səmˈbʱaːʃəɳəm] - more important conversation, or conversation between people who are more socially important (I thought this simply was a formal word for 'conversation', but apparently, I was only right about it being a formal word)
സംസാരം [səmˈsaːɾəm] - conversation (formal word that I thought സംഭാഷണം was roughly synonymous with)

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby linguoboy » 2021-08-18, 21:41

cuckoopint a.k.a. lords-and-ladies, one of two Arum species commonly found in the UK. The name literally means "cuckoo penis" and refers to the shape of the flower.
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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-08-18, 22:02

vijayjohn wrote:pick-up sticks, pick-a-stick - basically Jenga, but with sticks instead of blocks.

This cracked me up because pick-up sticks is much older than Jenga and I would have said it the other way around, "Jenga is basically like pick-up sticks, but with blocks instead of sticks".
I know you wrote it that way because pick-up sticks was the word that was new to you. It just surprised me that people would know Jenga and not pick-up sticks, but I'm old enough to remember when Jenga was a new game, so.... for those who aren't your post makes total sense. Jenga has become more popular/common/known than pick-up sticks, but somehow that took me by surprise. When I was a child we played pick-up sticks and hadn't heard of Jenga.

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-19, 2:52

It was still pretty new when I was growing up. That was why kids wanted to play it at that time and didn't play pick-up sticks. *shrug*

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Car » 2021-08-19, 5:44

vijayjohn wrote:pick-up sticks, pick-a-stick - basically Jenga, but with sticks instead of blocks. I think I've actually played this before.

That's called Mikado here. We've had ours for as long as I can remember, so it cracked me up as well to see it described as a kind of Jenga.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby OldBoring » 2021-08-19, 7:44

Hmmm I googled Jenga and pick up sticks butI've never thought at them as the same game. :hmm:

Pick-up sticks is called sciangai /ʃanˈgai/ in Italy, which is the Italian pronunciation of Shanghai, the Chinese city.

While Mikado is the snack made of chocolate-covered cookie sticks, named Pocky in other countries.

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Naava » 2021-08-19, 9:39

Car wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:pick-up sticks, pick-a-stick - basically Jenga, but with sticks instead of blocks. I think I've actually played this before.

That's called Mikado here. We've had ours for as long as I can remember, so it cracked me up as well to see it described as a kind of Jenga.

We also call it Mikado. I tend to forget the name and say the stick game instead :mrgreen:

//edit: I googled it and even some of the online shops are selling it as "the stick game"! Looks like I'm not the only one who has trouble remembering its real name.

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Car » 2021-08-19, 12:03

OldBoring wrote:Pick-up sticks is called sciangai /ʃanˈgai/ in Italy, which is the Italian pronunciation of Shanghai, the Chinese city.

While Mikado is the snack made of chocolate-covered cookie sticks, named Pocky in other countries.

The snack is called Mikado here, too, so it can be both.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-19, 14:00

Car wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:pick-up sticks, pick-a-stick - basically Jenga, but with sticks instead of blocks. I think I've actually played this before.

That's called Mikado here. We've had ours for as long as I can remember, so it cracked me up as well to see it described as a kind of Jenga.

Okay boomers! :P (Jk)

I'm sure it's existed as long as anyone can remember, but I'm not entirely sure I've ever played it. Maybe I haven't after all. :hmm: By contrast, I used to own a Jenga set.

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Osias » 2021-08-20, 12:45

Image

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2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-23, 4:38

roach - A FISH?!? LMAO!
krunk - crazy drunk (adjective)
കതിന [kəˈd̪ina] - dynamite
ചമ്മുക [ˈt͡ʃəmmuga] - to feel ashamed, embarrassed, vexed; to become pale

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby OldBoring » 2021-08-23, 10:06

Shit I was convinced the stick game was named "Shanghai" in all languages. I'm lucky I've never needed to mention the game in English.

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-09-09, 18:45

spoon - (slang) metaphoric unit of energy available for daily activities
gag me with a spoon - (US-specific?) expression of disgust
കൊല്ല്യാൻ [kolˈljaːn] - lightning
നിലവാരപ്പെടുക [n̪iləˈʋaːɾəpeɖuga] - to standardize

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby linguoboy » 2021-09-09, 19:48

vijayjohn wrote:gag me with a spoon - (US-specific?) expression of disgust

Originally specific to the San Fernando Valley. It was one of the Valleyspeak idioms that enjoyed a brief burst of popularity in the early 80s but I don't think it really worked its way into the vernacular anywhere else. (Here in the Midwest, it was always deployed somewhat performitively, with an exaggerated Valley Girl accent and mannerisms.)
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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-09-13, 22:07

Some Indian political slurs:

librandu - liberal, leftist (from liberal + Hindi गांडू [ˈgaɳɖu] 'asshole'
sickular - basically the same as librandu (Wiktionary says "see also: libtard")
congi - also basically the same, though also used for Congress supporters
chaddi - the opposite: an RSS supporter. I already knew this meant underwear. Not sure what the connection is

I'm guessing Chodi (from the Hindi word for 'fucker'?) means a Modi-supporter and urban Naxal is intended to mean something like a tankie. On Reddit, apparently, the server for left-wing Indians is r/librandu, and the server for BJP-supporters is r/chodi.

Plus a bunch of grammatical terms in Malayalam (not 100% sure about any of these):

ആഖ്യ [ˈaːkʰja] - subject (opposite of the next term)
ആഖ്യാതം [aːˈkʰjaːd̪əm] - predicate
ഊഷ്മാവ് [uːʃˈmaːʋɯ] - sibilant
ഘോഷി [ˈgʱoːʃi] - laryngeal
സാമാന്യലിംഗം [saːˈmaːnjəliŋgəm] - indeterminate gender
ഹ്രസ്വം [hrəˈsʋəm] - short (vowel)

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-09-29, 22:10

(en) litterateur n - literary person, especially a professional writer
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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-01, 23:09

English (en) NIMBY - "not in my backyard," used to describe people opposed to housing for the homeless, apparently
English (en) YIMBY - "yes, in my backyard," polar opposite of NIMBY. An online friend of mine was using YIMBY so much at one point I joked that it was starting to look like VIJAY :D
Malayalam (ml) ദ്യോതകം [ˈd̪joːd̪əgəm] - I think this means 'postposition'
Malayalam (ml) പള്ളിപ്പാക്കാൻ [pəɭɭipaːˈkaːn] - apparently, a local term in the part of Kerala my parents are from for 'civet cat' (I've posted the more widespread/standard Malayalam term before, presumably in this same thread)

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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-10-02, 2:50

vijayjohn wrote:English (en) NIMBY - "not in my backyard," used to describe people opposed to housing for the homeless, apparently

It can be used for opposition to various kinds of development in a person’s local area, though, yes, affordable housing is a common target. Sports stadiums and other traffic/noise/light generators can rile NIMBYs. As can power plants, like wind and nuclear.
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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-10-07, 1:57

(en) rugelach n - type of Jewish pastry

Wikipedia gives /ˈruːɡələx/ as the pronunciation. In the TV show where I heard it, two cooks who have grown up eating it called it /ˈruːɡələ/, and for a good minute or two I thought they were talking about arugula.
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Re: The last word of your mother tongue you have learnt ?

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-07, 15:59

Dormouse559 wrote:(en) rugelach n - type of Jewish pastry

Wikipedia gives /ˈruːɡələx/ as the pronunciation. In the TV show where I heard it, two cooks who have grown up eating it called it /ˈruːɡələ/, and for a good minute or two I thought they were talking about arugula.

Rugelach is derived from a Yiddish plural form. It gets treated as a mass noun in English when it's a count noun in Yiddish. IME, the /ˈruːɡələ/ pronunciation is by far the more common and I often see it spelled "rugelah" (etc.) to match.

(See also kreplach, plural of krepl "soup dumpling", though this always seems to retain the /x/.)
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