why special ambassador, you're really spoiling us!

[the_heiress]

Gezellig up to your monitor for a second, as unless you’re a complete klloshar, I’d like to share my favourite news story of the day with you.

It’s on the top ten most untranslatable words. The winner is ilunga from the Bantu language of Tshiluba, and means a person ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time,

Comments

[mooism]

"Plenipotentiary" is the sort of word that requires so much effort to remember what it means, that you forget what language it's from. Particularly if you think in seven languages anyway.

[the_heiress]

I'll probably remember what it means but forget the word.... less scrabble friendly.

[verlaine]

What's untranslatable about plenipotentiary? It's just someone who is invested with lots of power. A bit like a battery.

[the_heiress]

A battery that eats Ferrero Rocher chocolates - scary.

[squaddie67]

I shall endeavour to use plenipotentiary in my conversation tomorrow.I shall aim it at a nice but dim colleague of mine, just so I can see his face screw up in confusion.

[addedentry]

Excellent. Of course these articles are always undermined by providing translations of the words in question. It'd be better if the winner had been xyzzy and linguists had been quoted saying 'We haven't a clue'.

French has no word for 'shallow'. This is why they have a reputation for philosophy.

[squaddie67]

And there was me thinking they had a reputation for eating onions and going "Haw-he-haw-he-haw!" in the manner of Sacha Distelle.

That rings a bell...

[daweaver]

Is this, I wonder, in any way linked to an article in the Economist from June 12, talking about the most untranslateable words in the legal profession. (Checks link, checks article.) Yes, it is. The Eurosceptic wrote:

"A leapfrog appeal is an interesting bit of the English legal system: in a case of sufficient public importance, the appeal may go straight from the High Court to the House of Lords, bypassing the Court of Appeal. But how to translate it? The game of leapfrog is Bockspringen in German (literally, deer-jumping) saute-mouton in French (sheep-jump.)"

In the same survey of 1000 professional translators by a company that wants the publicity, "'leapfrog appeal' was voted the hardest English term to translate, closely followed by 'toxic tort' (harmful exposure to a poisonous chemical.) Other troubling legal arcana included 'Michaelmas term' (court sittings between November 2 and 25.)

"Untranslatable words, especially from big widely used languages, often migrate untranslated: panache and schadenfreude are now English words,

Re: That rings a bell...

[the_heiress]

Ah, the blessed lack of wheel reinvention in public relations.