Time Lapse of the Shifting Borders of Europe
15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent
1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian)
The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.
2. Yuputka (Ulwa)
A word made for walking in the woods at night, it’s the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.
3. Slampadato (Italian)
Addicted to the infra-red glow of tanning salons? This word describes you.
4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
The Yiddish have scores of words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.
5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
You know that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet? This is the word for it.
6. Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish)
A word that would aptly describe the prevailing fashion trend among American men under 40, it means one who wears the shirt tail outside of his trousers.
7. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)
“Hmm, now where did I leave those keys?” he said, pana po’oing. It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.
8. Gumusservi (Turkish)
Meteorologists can be poets in Turkey with words like this at their disposal. It means moonlight shining on water.
9. Vybafnout (Czech)
A word tailor-made for annoying older brothers—it means to jump out and say boo.
10. Mencolek (Indonesian)
You know that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it.
11. Faamiti (Samoan)
To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.
12. Glas wen (Welsh)
A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.
13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.
14. Boketto (Japanese)
It’s nice to know that the Japanese think enough of the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking to give it a name.
15. Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
William Morris
The Book Seer
I present the finest literary assistance known to the Interwebs — The Book Seer
Such a game changer in getting you to pattern your reading choices in natural & connected cycles.
This website also defines the philosophy of having one function and doing it to perfection. It doesn’t add in unnecessary connection options to every social media widget known to the global network of distraction. It doesn’t propel you into a limitless cyberspace of semi-relevant links, posts, podcasts, and tweets. It just gives you book recommendations. With the added pleasures of dry humour, a big beautiful font, and moustaches. The collective excess of the internet needs to learn from sites like this.
Gary Yourofsky delivers the ultimate speech on the reality of the Western diet & Veganism.
As much as I try to avoid being a self-righteous, morally-superior loudspeaker for Veganism, this is the single most compelling and comprehensive deliverance out there for you to consider. It’s Peter Singer’s ethical philosophy meets the science of The China Study meets the archeological facts of evolution & meat eating meets a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm.
“Stop filtering your nutrients through somebody else’s body. It’s illogical and irrational. Go to those sources directly - fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, grains, legumes.”
Two Great & Essential Articles From People Named Jonathan
Two articles I’ve come across before in my endless tromping of the internet that are definitely classics, always worth reading through again. Both just happen to be written by men named Jonathan.
• • •
ONE : Caring for Your Introvert by Jonathan Rauch
On understanding how personality types are really about where we source our energy from - other people or solitude.
Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say “Hell is other people at breakfast.” Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring.
TWO : Liking Is For Cowards. Go For What Hurts. by Jonathan Franzen
On how the narcissistic cultural aspects of technology - such as “liking” on facebook - are making us apathetic and diluting our emotional intensity about the world.
Since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don’t have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way we might with actual people. It’s all one big endless loop. We like the mirror and the mirror likes us. To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors.
Designs For Working
Designs for Working by Malcolm Gladwell, published in the New Yorker back in 2000.
“When employees sit at their desks, quietly and industriously going about their business, an office is not functioning as it should.”
Great reflections on how physical space determines and facilitates modes of social interaction.
And just because I’m on a Gladwell binge, watch his New TED talk on the Norden Bombsight.
(Source: tetw)
