[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I'm sure this could be negated with flowy clothing that contains adversarial patterns. At least for a while.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

This whole thing says more about the quality of candidates than the system, though. The fact that I can say “he’s demented” and you don’t know who I’m referring to shows that the political establishment has its collective head up its ass.

Yeah. Like they should be enjoying retirement at this age, not running a bloody country.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Convicted felons can't vote, but they can run for office.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Aha! See, my first thought was that maybe it had something to do with pickpockets being present!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Aye! Flodhäst in Swedish, and カバ (河馬, 河 river, 馬 horse) in Japanese.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Thank you for sharing! I had not heard of this before. I particularly enjoyed this bit

Farang khi nok (Thai: ฝรั่งขี้นก, lit. 'bird-droppings Farang'), also used in Lao, is slang commonly used as an insult to a person of white race, equivalent to white trash, as khi means feces and nok means bird, referring to the white color of bird-droppings

That's so colourful. I love it.

It also made me think of the fictional race in Star Trek, the Ferengi. At least according to Wikipedia that is precisely the origin of their name!

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Is tori ever used like plaza, like the Swedish word "torg?" The way I read tori in my head makes it sound almost homophonous with torg, hence why I ask.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

蚤の市

Yep! nomi no ichi. Nomi (蚤) means flea, and ichi (市) means market, no (の) is a possessive particle making it "flea's market" or "market of flea"

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

This is true, I don't know which word came first. I'd wager a guess that 蚤の市 predates フリーマーケット, but it's really just a stab in the dark on the basis that English loanwords feel more modern, and it feels unlikely that a calque would be created after a loanword has been widely adopted.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I started talking to a dude from Brazil a couple of months ago, and was blown away just by how different Brazilian Portuguese is from Portuguese, even just phonetically. I should've probably mentioned that I really only speak English, Swedish, and Japanese, so any other examples are ones that I've dug up in lexicons and the like, so there may be terms that are direct translations but not actually used colloquially.

I can totally see different words being used between Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal-Portuguese.

[-] [email protected] 60 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What I think is interesting about the word flea market is that it's a calque in pretty much all languages.

The Swedish word is "loppis", which is a cutesy colloquial term for "loppmarknad." Loppa, meaning flea, and marknad meaning market.
Flohmarkt in German also means lit. "flea market."
Marche aux puces is French, where "puce" means flea, I think this might be the origin of the term.
Japanese has the casual term フリマ (fleama), short for フリーマーケット, which is just the English term "flea market", there's also the term 蚤の市, just meaning "market of fleas."

I believe Portuguese calls it a "thieves' market", but Spanish, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, and Mandarin all use their own native words for "flea market"; mercado de pulgas, mercato delle pulci, Блошиный рынок, Bit Pazarı, Vlooienmarkt, 跳蚤市场.

For all of the concepts and such that are identical across cultures, few things have universal names. Typically they enter the language as loanwords as well (e.g. karaoke, from Japanese '空オケ', hollow orchestra), so the term "flea market" stands out to me. I'm sure there are lots of other similar things I'm not aware of though.


Edit: It's worth mentioning that other than Swedish (native), English, and Japanese, I don't speak any of the other languages. I've asked a Russian-American friend about the Russian term, and a friend in Taiwan about the Mandarin term. Otherwise I've checked dictionaries and the like. Don't take my word as fact, I'm not a linguist. It was just a pattern I found interesting, because the term itself is so particular. Any and all corrections are more than welcome.

I'm also delighted by the discussion this has sparked! 💖

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dojan

joined 1 year ago