A divine gift for the word-obsessedβa deliciously eccentric world tour of words that have no English equivalent The countless language freaks whoβve worn out their copies of Eats, Shoots and Leaves will find inexhaustible distraction in The Meaning of Tingo. Where else will they discover that Bolivi
The Meaning of Tingo: And Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World
β Scribed by Adam Jacot De Boinod
- Publisher
- Penguin Press
- Year
- 2007;2006
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 445 KB
- Category
- Fiction
- ISBN
- 0143038524
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
β¦ Synopsis
EDITORIAL REVIEW:
**A divine gift for the word-obsesseda deliciously eccentric world tour of words that have no English equivalent**
The countless language freaks whove worn out their copies of *Eats, Shoots and Leaves* will find inexhaustible distraction in *The Meaning of Tingo*. Where else will they discover that Bolivians have a word that means "I was rather too drunk last night and its all their fault"? As for *tingo*, on Easter Island it means "to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by borrowing them." Organized by themes such as food, the human body, and sex and love, this irresistible book combs through more than 254 languages in search of those gorgeous oddities that have no direct English counterpartwords so strange and apt that if they didnt exist, they would have to be invented.
Highlights from *The Meaning of Tingo*:
**mencomet** (Indonesian): stealing things of small value such as food or drinks, partly for fun
**scheissbedauern** (German): the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had hoped
**mono-no-aware** (Japanese): appreciating the sadness of existence
**mahj** (Persian): looking beautiful after disease
**plimpplamppletteren** (Dutch): the skimming of a flat stone as many times as possible across the surface of the water
**koshatnik** (Russian): a dealer in stolen cats
**ava** (Tahitian): wife (but also means whisky)
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
EDITORIAL REVIEW: \*\*A divine gift for the word-obsesseda deliciously eccentric world tour of words that have no English equivalent\*\* The countless language freaks whove worn out their copies of \*Eats, Shoots and Leaves\* will find inexhaustible distraction in \*The Meaning of Tingo\
EDITORIAL REVIEW: \*\*A divine gift for the word-obsesseda deliciously eccentric world tour of words that have no English equivalent\*\* The countless language freaks whove worn out their copies of \*Eats, Shoots and Leaves\* will find inexhaustible distraction in \*The Meaning of Tingo\
A garden of delights for the word obsessed: a world tour of the best of all those strange words that don't have a precise English equivalent, the ones that tell us so much about other cultures' priorities and preoccupations and expand our minds. Did you know that people in Bolivia have a word that m