[PaulB]

Again, I hope there’s no paywall. This article from Time Magazine highlights a Psychologist whose quest is catalogue foreign words with no direct English translation. “Schadenfreude” is I guess a well known example.

Tim Lomas, a lecturer in positive psychology at the University of East London — and a man who signs his emails “Best Wishes” — is engaged in the opposite endeavor: analyzing all the types of well-being that he can possibly find. Specifically, Lomas is searching for psychological insights by collecting untranslatable words that describe pleasurable feelings we don’t have names for in English. “It’s almost like each one is a window onto a new landscape,” Lomas says of words like the Dutch pretoogjes, which describes the twinkling eyes of someone engaged in benign mischief.

Here’s the Time article

http://time.com/5265277/learn-new-words ... ium=social

And here’s Dr Lomas’s website of foreign words

https://www.drtimlomas.com/lexicography

[Dave W]

'Chardonnayfreude'

Taking pleasure in the hangovers of others.

[OCB]

Teuch

Dreichit - not to be confused with dreicht.

Houfin

Smirry

Gallus

Gang (to go)

Riechen.

Ah Ken(I know)

Yep, Scots is possibly a dialect of English,
Some funny bits of Dutch/Germanic and Gaelic in there.

Ye gonnae naw, haud yer whiesht!

[Bill Haddow]

For words which indicate pleasure / well being, with no real English equivalent, I could only think of couthy and sonsie

Girn and sleekit are splendid words.

Bill H

[Charles Hunt]

Talking to a friend in Geneva about an ice skating manoeuvre her daughter always found difficult.........'we call it a black beast'.

I had to think for a moment.

"Ah yes, in English we call that bete noir."

(Someone techy can insert the circumflex.)

[Colonel Panic]

On a Mac you just hold down the "e" key until an option window appears, then type in the relevant number. Simples.

[OCB]

For words which indicate pleasure / well being, with no real English equivalent, I could only think of couthy and sonsie

Girn and sleekit are splendid words.

Bill H

Where fur yer girnin sleekit face, ya bass”

I find myself reverting to my parental or older phrases with my kids. As someone who left the UK nearly 20 years ago, the “primordial” return of some parental phrases I find both funny as f888, and fascinating as a language geek.

It basically suggests the imprinting of some linguistic parental techniques are laid down at the time of “baby brain”.

Impossible to say in my case, as I was in Scotland for years after I switched from baby brain - but ask anyone on here who had a multi lingual childhood their response to recall/recognition/response of words they grew up with.

High prob those frequently exposed to words and phonemes prior to the loss of baby brain can recall and even reproduce, even decades later. At least, that was the research conclusions a few years back.

[OCB]

Skelp

In English the closest is “being slapped” or “belted”

If yer mithir said ye were in fur a richt skelpin...

...before anyone starts with the whole Scots isnae a richt taal, I think “skelp” is pretty much the perfect example.

Depending on the context, intonation and social surroundings- it was/is one of those non-English words that is noun/verb etc

I don’t think I’ve ever found a direct equivalent of “face like a richt skelp erse”

[Charles Hunt]

Skelp = Scalp?

Struggling with an American book, it appears that a pocketbook is a lady's handbag. Go figure, as they would say.

[Charles Hunt]

Many thanks Colonel, however due to infrequent usage I doubt I will remember the information when needed.

Bête. It works!!

[PeteSpencer]

Many thanks Colonel, however due to infrequent usage I doubt I will remember the information when needed.

Bête. It works!!

So how does it work for a PC?

I remember keef sending me a long list of 3 figure codes,ong lost

Have we come on since then?

Petet

[PaulB]

Many thanks Colonel, however due to infrequent usage I doubt I will remember the information when needed.

Bête. It works!!

So how does it work for a PC?

I remember keef sending me a long list of 3 figure codes,ong lost

Progress has been made.... now you get pages of instructions

https://www.wikihow.com/Put-Accents-on-Letters

(for you Apple folks, it's a similar method on the iPad/Phone - ie long press on the key.)

[OCB]

Skelp = Scalp?

Struggling with an American book, it appears that a pocketbook is a lady's handbag. Go figure, as they would say.

whit's yer boggle?

Below is a desperately bare "explanation" of the etymology....
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skelp

[Flyin'Dutch']

Skelp = Scalp?

Struggling with an American book, it appears that a pocketbook is a lady's handbag. Go figure, as they would say.

You mean a fanny?

[Bill Haddow]

You mean a fanny?

FD, careful ! We don't want to go down the "two people separated by a common language" route when the reality is that the language can be quite uncommon.

Fannies, fanny-bags, suspenders, knickers, pants, bum, fag, and many other words change their meaning radically mid-Atlantic.

Bill H