It is only since living in Brasil and teaching English and trying to learn Portuguese that I have come to see how unimaginative some English words are.
In the first instance, I didn't so much "come to see" as have it pointed out to me by a Brazilian friend who thought "popcorn" showed a complete lack of creativity, compared to the poetic, somewhat alliterative Portuguese alternative of "pipoca."
Since then, with Heitor and I, it has become something of a game to recognize these functional, but extremely prosaic, English words.
Of course, compound words are a normal and useful feature of the English language and the facility with which we can create them is probably even a strength of the language, but sometimes, if you stop for just a split second, you can see the sense in which they appear downright silly, especially in our case here where there is a single Portuguese alternative.
Heitor's personal favorite is "keyhole," and it must seem like a silly word for others as well, because it has given us derivatives like "piehole" and my favorite, "carhole," from the Simpsons, where Moe thought the French-sounding "garage" was just too lah-de-dah.
I also think "keyhole" just sounds silly, but because the Portuguese alternative to keyhole is not really very imaginative either (buraco de fechadura = hole for the lock), my favorite for now is "fireplace." Think about it; how dumb is that?
Some others on our list:
clothesline (ever hung anything there besides clothes?)
afternoon (duh)
backpack (I love the Portuguese alternative of "mochila.")
Your assignment is to keep this in your mind, think about the words you use every day, and add to the list. But, remember, you can't merely select compound words, because there are so many. Try to find ones that seem to you to have an inherent silly factor.
5 comments:
Well, I always thought the names of flies (butterfly, dragonfly, housefly?) and berries (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry) were a little odd.
"Keyboard" sounds unimaginative, but it's similar in Portuguese ("teclado", derived from "tecla", key).
"Hallway" sounds a little obvious as well. Which reminds me of "bedroom" and "bathroom". These two also have similar versions in Portuguese (dormitório and banheiro). We don't have "restroom", though. That one just sounds nasty.
One that I like because it sounds silly is "doughnut". I also like it because it was such a realization after I learned the word "dough". Although, I guess the "nut" part is a little lost these days because of the habit of making a hole in it, so it looks more like a ring. A doughring.
One that I specially admire is "bittersweet", because we don't have it. Its meaning is so poetic, but I guess the word itself is indeed obvious.
Thanks, Alexandre - I like them. It would be better if strawberry was redberry. Then raspberry could be darkredberry.
I never thought about doughnut. Do you think maybe the nut was originally the little part that was cut out of the middle? Bakeries in the US that sell doughnuts sometimes also sell those little middle pieces too. Not sure, but I think they call them doughnut holes (which doesn't make sense). I wonder if they used to be dough nuts.
I thought of a couple more in the middle of the night when I should have been sleeping.
Toilet paper is funny because we usually come up with euphemisms for anything so "delicate." (Turns out that toilet paper isn't a compound word as I thought it was.) A more fitting word would be the vulgar term every teenage boy knows: asswipe.
Tablecloth and bedspread are the other two I thought of. They are so prosaic. In both cases it seems like there should be some delicate french word for them.
I completely agree about bittersweet. It is such a useful word. Português should have one. And all languages should have something like the German word (which we have adopted in English) schadenfreude.
A silly word to me is lickety-split, but it probably doesn't qualify since it is hyphenated. My mother used that frequently and would have been appalled at where my little mind went with it.
How about car parts--bumper, for instance. When I think of axle, I think of a Swedish guy. Fender? As in it fends off? Or, an electric guitar?
Now, for unique words, how about horses? Where else do you find a fetlock? Or a noun, withers? Is it correct that horses were so important that they had names for parts that were unique to horses and were not appropriate for use with other stuff?
Just a couple more. You know how the oddities of the language fascinate me...errr, well aside from the way my oddities fascinate me.
How about flagman, chairman and other "man" words. I think chairperson is absolutely ridiculous and I saw "flagger" today. Is that flagger, flogger? or laggard? I doubt that anyone who chooses the career path to get to be a "flagger" really gives a crap.
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