Miriam
Griffonage, crapulence and dysania - Do you know these words?
On Facebook I found this:
"DID YOU KNOW THESE THINGS HAD NAMES?
1. The space between your eyebrows is called a glabella.
2. The way it smells after the rain is called petrichor.
3. The plastic or metallic coating at the end of your shoelaces is called an aglet.
4. The rumbling of stomach is actually called a wamble.
5. The cry of a new born baby is called a vagitus.
6. The prongs on a fork are called tines.
7. The sheen or light that you see when you close your eyes and press your hands on them is called phosphenes.
8. The tiny plastic table placed in the middle of a pizza box is called a box tent.
9. The day after tomorrow is called
overmorrow.
10. Your tiny toe or finger is called minimus.
11. The wired cage that holds the cork in a bottle of champagne is called an agraffe.
12. The 'na na na' and 'la la la', which don't really have any meaning in the lyrics of any song, are called vocables.
13. When you combine an exclamation mark with a question mark (like this ?!), it is referred to as an interrobang.
14. The space between your nostrils is called columella nasi.
15. The armhole in clothes, where the sleeves are sewn, is called armscye.
16. The condition of finding it difficult to get out of the bed in the morning is called dysania.
17. Illegible hand-writing is called griffonage.
18. The dot over an “i” or a “j” is called tittle.
19. That utterly sick feeling you get after eating or drinking too much is called crapulence.
20. The metallic device used to measure your feet at the shoe store is called Bannock device.
HOW MANY OF THE ABOVE DID YOU ALREADY KNOW?"
(<a href="https://www.facebook.com/DorsetLibraries/posts/1299362180268462" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/DorsetLibraries/posts/1299362180268462</a>;, This is not my original source which was an image, but this text is floating around on many pages in the internet, so I decided to take this link)
Btw, Bannock device is wrong, it should be Brannock device.
Ok, I only knew petrichor (maybe I heard it first from Troglodyte: <a href="https://www.italki.com/discussion/198848" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.italki.com/discussion/198848</a>;) and interrobang in English and I think I read aglet before (maybe in a similar list). Some of the words are very common in my native tongue:
aglet: die Nadel (colloquial: die Pinke)
wamble: das Magenknurren, das Magengrollen
overmorrow: übermorgen
tine: die Zinke
griffonage: das Gekrakel
armscye: der Ärmelausschnitt
crapulence: die Völlerei
tittle: der i-Punkt, das i-Tüpfelchen
minimus: der kleine Finger (the term digitus minimus is only used for medical and scientific purposes)
columella nasi: der Nasensteg (but the bridge of glasses is also called Nasensteg)
Some are exactly like the English ones:
glabella: die Glabella
petrichor: der Petrichor
interrobang: das Interrobang (or: das Fragerufzeichen)
phosphen: das Phosphen
agraffe: die Agraffe
Box tent is something that simply doesn't exist in Germany, according to German Wikipedia it's something used in the US. I've never seen this thing: <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzakarton#Pizza_saver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzakarton#Pizza_saver</a>;. Also, I've never seen a Brannock device as the feet measuring devices in Germany look different.
I couldn't find a German equivalent for vocables (I'm sure there is one, I just don't know much about music) and for dysania. I would call it Bettschwere but Bettschwere is more the state of being really tired and ready to fall into one's bed. When I can't get up in the morning, I say that gravity's holding me back.
My questions to you:
How many of the mentioned English words did you know? (Are you a native English speaker or a non-native?)
Do you know the names of these things in your native tongue or target language?
Jun 1, 2020 8:44 AM
Comments · 9
3
@Anton
No, tréma consists of two dots: ë, ï.
Muselet is a synonym to agraffe.
June 1, 2020
2
Partaking in quizzes, reading newspapers with a puzzle section, getting Merriam-Websters word of the day ... ;D
And generally being a language nerd.
As for active use: aglet, tines, agraffe, tittle .. the others not so much ;D
And there's another one for the list: philtrum - the "dent" on the upper lip below the nose.
June 3, 2020
2
Thanks for all the answers. It's interesting how different the knowledge of these words is. I guess some are just very technical terms that aren't really used in real life (like minimus and box tent).
@človek
How come, you know so many of them? Do you actually use them actively?
June 3, 2020
2
I only knew 11 ... sad panda :(
June 3, 2020
2
Native English speaker, and I only knew "tines" and "interrobang".
3. Aglet - maybe I ought to know the word, but I'd just as soon say "tip" or maybe even "nib".
8. Box tent - I'd just as soon call it "that plastic thingie in the pizza box". The official names sound weird to me.
9. Overmorrow - that's archaic.
10. Minimus - I've never seen that used. Almost everybody would say something like "Little finger", "pinky finger", "pinkie", "baby toe" etc.
17. Griffonage - never heard of it. I'd call it "(illegible) scrawl", "chicken scratch", "scribble", or even sarcastically "doctors' handwriting".
18. Tittle - I'd still call it a dot.
19. I imagine that nobody uses this word, except incorrectly. For less extreme satiety, there's feeling "stuffed". Or "sooo stuffed". Next is maybe "gorged" as in "they gorged themselves on XYZ".
June 1, 2020
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Miriam
Language Skills
Chinese (Mandarin), French, German
Learning Language
Chinese (Mandarin)
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