Cool Words From Around The World

I feature words on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog quite often ... every week in fact! Every blog post is filled with words and photos!

But what I mean is that from time to time I like to take a specific look at cool words from around the world, so this week it's time for another round-up of cool words from around the world...

Look at all those 'toes of the hand'!
Editor's note: "Charles, you've got it the wrong way round.
It's fingers of the foot, not toes of the hand."
Charles: "I know, I was just being stupid. Sorry."

1) Foot fingers

The Italian expression to describe a toe is 'dito del piede' which literally translates as 'finger of the foot' which is a very cool way to describe your toes!

2) Tartle

I'm very bad at forgetting people's names, so I tartle quite a lot. That's because 'tartle' is a Scottish word which means to hesitate when introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

So just to make things absolutely clear, to tartle means to, er ... well, it means ... er, obviously tartle, er ... is a word, er ... and it's meaning is, er ... well...

3) Prozvonit

Have you got a friend who is too tight to use their own phone credit to ring people, so instead they ring you then quickly hang up before you answer, hoping that you will see that they called you and then ring them back, using your credit rather than theirs!

Well if you have got a friend like that, then you know what the Czech word 'prozvonit' means, because prozvonit means to ring a mobile phone, then quickly hang up before they answer so that they ring you back and use their phone credit rather than theirs.

4)  Brain scratcher

"Why do we scratch our heads when we are thinking?"
"Hmm, let me think..."

In English, when you scratch your head to help you remember something, we call that, 'scratching your head to help you remember something'.

However, in Hawaiian they have a special word to describe scratching your head to help you remember something. The word is 'pana po’o'. Actually, that's two words.

When you think about it, it's quite weird how people scratch their heads when they want to remember something. I'm pretty sure it's not a scientifically proven method of memory recall. I get that your brain is responsible for memory, so presumably that's why you touch your head, but if you want to lift something you don't scratch your arm. So why do we scratch our heads when we want to remember something?

5)  And stretch...

When you do that stretch that you do when you first wake up in the morning, have you ever wished that there was a word to describe it?

Well in Hindi, there is! 'Ungdayee' is a cool Hindi word to describe exactly that - the stretch that you do when you first wake up in the morning.

6) Banana O'Clock

Clocks for sale at the supermarket.

If we want to refer to time, we have seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, etc, but in Malay they also have a rather unusual expression to refer to a unit of time ... 'pisan zapra'.

As you can see below, it's a unit of time with a very precise scientific definition:

"Pisan Zapra: The length of time needed to eat a banana."

Imagine if we referred to time by how long it takes to eat things! It would cause all sorts of problems.

Doctor: "You're late for your appointment. You were supposed to be here at three apples past twelve."
Patient: "It's three apples past twelve now."
Doctor: "You must be a slower eater than I am."

Although it's pretty cool to have a unit of time based on the length of time it takes to eat a banana, I have to say that for practical purposes I prefer to stick to hours, minutes and seconds.

7) Jayus

'Jayus' is an Indonesian word which means, “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that the people hearing the joke can't help but laugh.”

Unfortunately, I'm unable to demonstrate with an example, because all of my jokes are extremely funny!

8) The perfect word for Nelson Muntz (from the Simpsons)

'Schadenfraude' is perhaps the most well known of the words featured in this week's blog post, but if you haven't heard of it before, then schadenfraude is a German word which means 'taking pleasure in the misfortune of others'.  If I had to sum up schadenfraude in a photo, this would be it...

Taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.

Look at the smug grin on the face of the dog on the left! You couldn't find a more accurate description of schadenfraude!

9) Taking pleasure in the pleasure of others

Not everyone is the type of person who takes pleasure in the misfortune of others, however, so if you're a positive type of person, then you probably won't have much need to use the word schadenfraude.

Well there's good news, because thankfully there's a Hebrew word for positive people which is pretty much the opposite of schadenfraude.

'Firgun' is a Hebrew word which is a much nicer word, because it means to take pleasure in someone else's success.

10) Overmorrow

Did you know that in English there's a word to describe the day after tomorrow? Well whether you did or not, there is such a word and that word is 'overmorrow'. It's a word which is hardly ever used in English, but in Georgian there's a word to describe the day after tomorrow which is in common usage, and it's quite a cool word.

Zeg!

The Georgian word for the day after tomorrow is 'zeg'. So if you're wondering when Monday is, it's zeg.

But only if you're reading this on a Saturday.

And only if you're Georgian.

You can find more blog posts containing words in every single blog post ever published on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog. But if you want blog posts about specific words, then try the blog posts below:
Quirks of the English language
10 interesting Japanese words and expressions