They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases

Chapter One

Human Family Affairs

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People Words

We do not talk only in order to reason or to inform. We have to make love and quarrel, to propitiate and pardon, to rebuke, console, intercede, and arouse. "He that complains," said Johnson, "acts like a man, like a social being."
C. S. Lewis, At the Fringe of Language

Human beings ... are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.... The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is, to a large extent, unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.
Edward Sapir, The Relation of Habitual.
Thought and Behavior to Language

Everybody has a mother, and most people have in-laws, but anthropologists have discovered that there are nearly as many ways of reckoning kinship as there are cultures on the planet. The esteem, or lack of it, with which people regard their relatives and neighbors varies widely from culture to culture and is often reflected in the vocabularies people use to describe their relationships. To the Apaches, who live in a harsh desert environment, in-laws are called sitike, and the relationship involves a kind of sacred obligation. To the Mayans, who live in an abundant tropical environment, the word bol is used as the noun for "in-law"and as an extraordinarily pejorative adjective.

    The kinds of social arrangements to be found in different cultures vary as widely as their kinship systems. You don't have to be kin to have complex relationships—neighbors and friends are also objects of affection and scorn. The kinds of problems people have with one another, as well as the cultural mechanisms we have for dealing with these problems, are reflected in our vocabularies. In Hawaii, people deal with domestic disputes by arranging a ho'oponopono. On Easter Island, the words hakamaroo and tingo refer to different kinds of outrageous borrowing behavior. The Yiddish words tsuris and nakhes refer to two extreme emotions that only your son or daughter can invoke in you.

    Social games can be methods for disarming potentially explosive conflicts, as the Pascuense words anga-anga, hakanuka-nuka, and ngaobera attest. Words can evoke a sentimental dream, like the German term gemütlich. In Bali, a society where people are very closely involved with one another, the word ramé describes something at once chaotic and joyful. And Indonesians use the word rojong to describe a natural and guileless kind of human relationship that ought to be included in every human culture.

    Social relationships are not always harmonious, and some terms are not always complimentary: The German fisselig describes something you don't want to happen to you; the Scottish suilk refers to something you definitely don't want to be caught doing at the dinner table; the French phrase épater les bourgeois describes a category of behavior that has induced physical nausea in middle-class parents for countless generations.

    Other words describe social contracts that aren't familiar in our culture ... yet: The Polish dozywocie is a parental contract that might or might not work here; the Spanish confianza is reserved for a human relationship more unshakable and profound than that of a mere "good friend." Some words describe joyous social behaviors, as in the Bantu term mbuki-mvuki, which involves shucking off all clothing for party purposes. And other words, like the German Zeitgeist, describe cultural abstractions that convey the quintessentials of human social behavior.

    Words about families, social groups, and human relationships have the most intimate kind of power. As we witness the emergence of a society where family relationships are changing in profound ways (intermarriage and single parents are two prominent examples), we need words to help us reinvent the family. Just as we could make fantastic progress with new technologies, new ways of doing business, and new states of mind by learning the appropriate word-magic for each endeavor, we can make astonishing progress with one another by picking up a few important new words.

    Words are the glue that keeps social groups together or stirs them up. The right word can salve a misunderstanding or provoke a riot, With all the complexity and importance of human family affairs, it pays to have a few new words to describe those situations that just aren't covered by the orthodox lexicon. Every culture seems to have its own way of dealing with friendship, love, in-laws, strangers, siblings. Some cultures have come up with words that can actually create new kinds of relationships. Here they are. Use them. Teach them to your friends and family. See if your family life doesn't manifest an added dimension of clarity and felicity.

ho'oponopono (Hawaiian)
Solving a problem by talking it out. [noun]

We don't have this social mechanism in our culture, but we could well use it. A ho'oponopono (HO-OH-poh-no-poh-no) is a social gathering and healing process that combines the functions of a religious ceremony, group therapy, family counseling session, town-hall meeting, and small-claims court. An occasion for a ho'oponopono might be a dispute between in-laws, a disagreement between business partners, sexual complications, or minor territorial disagreements. After an invocation of the gods, the aggrieved parties sit down and discuss the issue until it is set right (the Hawaiian root word pono means "righteousness"). The closest analogy in the West comes from the realm of labor management relations, where "locked-door arbitration" is sometimes used to resolve disputes. The principle is the same: Everybody agrees to stay in the same room until some resolution is reached.

    In North America, because we are such a heterogeneous culture, citizens require many different forums for settling disputes and healing human relationships. Ho'oponopono originated in Hawaii, where the original native culture was racially, culturally, and religiously homogeneous, so it is not surprising to find that certain Hawaiian words reveal interrelationships of kinship ties, spiritual duties, and livelihood. In the United States, we might find it easier to settle interpersonal conflicts peacefully and equitably if we were to adopt some words (and corresponding attitudes) from Societies like that of ancient Hawaii.

    In our socially fragmented, serially monogamous, increasingly litigious society, both weddings and divorces are occasions in which a ho'oponopono might be preferable to the currently popular means of conflict resolution, "If your family and my family can't agree on the seating arrangement for our wedding, maybe we ought to round everybody up for a ho'oponopono." In this instance, the word would be used as a noun, combining and expanding the meanings of "showdown," "confrontation," "family discussion," and "therapy." But it could be used as a verb of last resort: "That does it. There's nothing left for us to do about this disagreement. We'll have to ho'oponopono," Or "Instead of a custody battle, why don't we ho'oponopono?" In families and in partnerships, the word could be used to symbolize a powerful covenant—an agreement to attempt to renegotiate crucial relationships whenever they are so out of tune that conflicts arise. As such, ho'oponopono could come to mean a new kind of agreement between people who live or work with one another, a verbal symbol of a mutual "arbitration" clause in the unwritten social contracts that bind us into families, communities, and societies.

hakamaroo [noun] and tingo [noun/verb] (Pascuense, Easter Island)
Outrageously aggressive or subtly flattering borrowing behavior.

The comic-strip antics of Dagwood Bumstead and his long-suffering neighbor, Herb Woodley, are classic antiheroic themes of American pop mythology. Objects, mostly tools, that Dagwood and Herb borrow from each other and fail to return are the recurrent triggering elements in an endless series of plots that always end up in fist-swinging melees. At this level, the concept of outrageous borrowing as a form of social aggression is well known to most English-speaking people. But we don't have specific words for different kinds of outrageous borrowing. Nor does English have a word for borrowing as a positive social act, a subtle form of flattery and homage.

    Indeed, in today's mobile American society, the idea of staying in the same place long enough to borrow something from your neighbor has a hint of nostalgia to it. The inhabitants of Easter Island, members of an extremely isolated and geographically immobile society, use the word hakamaroo (hah-kah-mahr-OH-oh) to describe the act of keeping borrowed objects until the owner has to ask for them back. As Dagwood and Herb know, hakamaroo is only the first step on a sophisticated hierarchy of escalating affronts. Psychoanalysts might describe such behavior as "passive-aggressive." And while it might be funny in a comic strip, in real life hakamaroo is usually part of a larger, painful pattern of hostility. Putting a name to it might help people resolve or avert this kind of silent aggression: "Herb," a real-life Dagwood might say, "this is the second garden tool you've borrowed this month. And you haven't returned my rake yet. Are you being forgetful? Or is this some kind of hakamaroo?"

    Borrowing is not always hostile on Easter Island; indeed, it can serve as a kind of social glue. Another Pascuense word, tingo (rhymes with "bingo"), carries the concept a step further, into a strange borderland between breach of etiquette and high praise: Tingo means to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by asking to borrow them. The social meaning of this behavior is similar to the Haida word potlatch, which refers to an act of giving that confers social status on the gift-giver (see chapter five for more about potlatch). If you admire a friend's possession long enough to ask for it, you are paying the donor a supreme compliment; the act of giving it to you is a power exchange that enhances the donor's social status.

    Perhaps if we adopted the custom of tingo and used the word openly to refer to it, a new awareness of the power of possessions might catch on. The currently popular way of life dedicated to the relentless pursuit of new cars, bigger houses, more powerful appliances—status symbols—followed by the ritual display of these symbolic objects and accompanying symbolic boasting, might grow into something wonderfully different if people toyed with the idea. "John," you might say, "I'm overcome with admiration for your beautiful new toaster [wristwatch, overcoat, stereo]. I'm afraid I must ask for tingo."

anga-anga [noun/verb], hakanuka-nuka [noun], and ngaobera [noun] (Pascuense, Easter Island)
Nasty, useful social games.

Easter Island contains one of the most isolated cultures on earth, both geographically and culturally. Located in the South Pacific, 2350 miles west of the coast of Chile (which owns it), Easter Island is home to a native culture numbering around 15,000 people today, descendants of daring Oceanian seafarers of ages past. There had been no contact with outsiders until the 19th century. The island is known to most people today because of the mystery of the huge stone statues located there.

    The geographical and cultural isolation have left their marks on the language. It is as if the small-town culture of Middle America were to be distilled to its essence. Social psychologists talk about "enmeshed" families, in which very close and often very volatile communications take place between family members, as opposed to "disengaged" families in which overt communications are more cool, reserved, and distant. Is it possible for societies to be enmeshed? Consider the social implications of a word like anga-anga (ON-gah ON-gah), which, as a noun, refers to a thought, perhaps groundless, that one is being gossiped about, arising from one's own sense of guilt, and as a verb refers to the act of thinking one is gossiped about. My informant, who married into the culture, assures me that anga-anga is similar to the English word conscience, except it refers to something other people might know about. "It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop," my informant told me.

    The term hakanuka-nuka (hah-kah-NOOK-ah NOOK-ah), referring to the act of revenging oneself upon somebody for an accumulation of insults or offenses, suggests that "forgive and forget" is not necessarily a dominant ethic. One more word, ngaobera (ung-OW-bear-ah), referring to a slight inflammation of the throat produced by screaming too much, suggests that the hakanuka-nukas and angas collide often enough to cause audible social friction.

    How do words enter common usage? Simply, people use them. If there is a widespread need for a word to fit an object, action, or idea that has become important enough in a society, then a word seems to emerge. Think of these Pascuense concepts as units of meaning that have the potential to propagate and evolve as they are used by countless people over the span of many years. It doesn't take too many entry points for a word to enter a language, if the need for it is strong enough. When you know that a friend is worried that people are gossiping about him, tell him he just has a case of anga-anga. If a long-suffering colleague has a chance to justly revenge herself on a long-time nemesis, congratulate her on "achieving such a fine hakanuka-nuka." And after somebody finishes screaming at you, calmly inform him that he is in for a bad case of ngaobera.

gemütlich (German)
Cozy, comfortable, genial, homey. [adjective]

History isn't always or entirely a matter of great men and women engaged in momentous events. Cultural changes on the level of everyday life as it is experienced by ordinary people have often proved more influential than dramatic acts like wars, revolutions, or voyages of discovery. At times, relatively short-lived cultural epochs contribute images to the wider culture, snapshots of the way one group of people actually lived at one time or another. The true origins of many of these terms are usually lost to most people who use the words a few generations later, when it has entered the language to demonstrate an abstract concept rather than the specific concrete incident that originally gave the image a name.

    Such is the case with gemütlich (gem-OOHT-lick, with a hard "g" as in "gum"), a word that has come to mean cozy, snug, comfortable (when applied to a scene, usually a family scene set in a living room) and to mean (when applied to persons) good-natured, easy-going, genial. The dictionary definitions don't quite capture the entire image that the word is meant to evoke: Think of a middle-aged man in his housecoat, felt slippers on his feet, sitting in an overstuffed easy chair in front of a cheery fireplace. He is smoking a long pipe and reading a newspaper. He has no care in the world and is friendly to his cat and neighbors. That's gemütlich.

    The word gemütlich, and the furnishings in the scene depicted above, originated in a short-lived but vividly depicted cultural era in Germany and Austria. After the Napoleonic wars, Germany was impoverished and introspective. The cultural tendency was toward simplicity and home-based values. The period and the style of furniture are now known to historians as "Biedermeier," after Papa Biedermeier, a character featured in the early-19th-century humor magazine Fleigende Blätter, a worthy, bourgeois-minded fellow who apparently epitomized that popular way of life. Gemütlichkeit describes the overall concept of a world of gemütlich people in gemütlich settings. Don't be surprised if future cultural historians find more significance in certain editions of Mad magazine than the events behind a political campaign.

Zeitgeist (German)
The prevailing mood of a certain period. [noun]

When you hear somebody say that a person is "stuck in the '60s" or "has a Depression mentality," you know what is meant, even though phrases like that are vague and general, because you have a good idea of the particular Zeitgeist (rhymes with "right heist") that reigned in the 1960s or during the great Depression. A straightforward definition is the spirit of the time. The problems come in when you try to pin down exactly what that means. It isn't strictly a matter of political atmosphere, fashions, artistic trends, or mores but rather the result of a combination of all those factors. While such a measure might appear to be sociologically interesting but essentially useless (what can you do with a Zeitgeist except identify it?), the degree to which people are in harmony with the prevailing Zeitgeist can have profound effects on the way individuals live their lives and the way the business of nations is conducted.

    Nobody ever plans a Zeitgeist, although politicians, advertising agencies, and entrepreneurs pay close attention to it, because it is a kind of summary effect of otherwise unrelated perceptions that lend a particular flavor to a time and place—perceptions that flood in upon every member of society, unbidden, triggered by different phenomena, from popular songs and catch phrases to architectural styles, political beliefs, and sexual mores. The analysis of what specifically contributes to this summing-up is best done in retrospect, so the Zeitgeist of a time can be fully pinned down only after the Zeitgeist has changed. Entrepreneurs who have a good sense of the Zeitgeist when it is actually occurring sometimes amass fortunes when they capture a specific commercial need at a particular moment: gourmet-cookie stores and designer clothing for toddlers, for example, were businesses that expressed and capitalized on the Zeitgeist of the mid-1980s.

    And the ways Zeitgeists change can presage or even trigger profound social revolutions. Sociologist Fred Polak, in his book The Image of the Future, proposed that people's models of the future, which are (at least partially) a function of the Zeitgeist, necessarily precede large-scale societal changes. For example, before the Renaissance and the industrial revolution could have happened, people's attention had to turn away from sacred, other-worldly, spiritual matters and refocus on instrumental, earthly, pragmatic affairs. According to Polak's hypothesis, at certain pivotal points in history, it is true that "as goes the Zeitgeist, so goes the civilization."

fisselig (German)
Flustered to the point of incompetence. [adjective]

Have you ever been supervised so closely, nagged so incessantly, watched so intently by a critic, spouse, or boss that your performance grew sloppier as you went along? In English, you might say you were "flustered" or "jittery." In Yiddish, you would say you were "farblonged." Neither of these words, however, puts any blame on the unwanted supervisorial attention that brings on this nervousness and disintegration of composure in the first place. The German fisselig (rhymes with "thistle fish") conveys a temporary state of inexactitude and sloppiness that is elicited by another person's nagging. It is the precise answer to the unkind question "What the heck is wrong with you today?"

    Everyone has been in a classroom in which the teacher managed to intimidate students into speechlessness, whether or not they knew the material. Spouses trying to teach their mate how to drive an automobile often exhibit a streak of this trait. Call these not-so-helpful advisers fisseligers. If someone who has driven you over the edge of your ability to cope then asks you what is wrong, reply, "I'm fisseliged." Your tormenter either will be stunned into puzzled silence or else will feed you your straight line by asking, "What is that supposed to mean?"

sitike (Apache)
In-laws who are formally committed to help during crises. [noun]

The English word in-law conveys the key defining characteristic of the ritually created nonblood relationship that anthropologists know as "nonconsanguineal kinship": You and your husband's brother share no genetic heritage, but your wedding made you mutually adopted kin to one another in the law. The cultural image of in-laws as "people you have to put up with whether or not you like them because they are related to your spouse" is portrayed in America in comedy routines, jokes, situation comedies. In other societies, where life can be tough if you don't have help in hard times, ceremonially created kinship covenants can be serious business.

    Magic is often more than superstition. Rituals are tools for affirming social contracts that are important to the social group. In 1931, anthropological pioneer Bronislaw Malinowski wrote that magic is "nothing else but an institution which fixes, organizes, and imposes upon the members of a society the positive solution in those inevitable conflicts which arise out of human impotence in dealing with hazardous issues by mere knowledge and technical ability." In agricultural societies, at harvest time or in case of natural disasters, it pays to have people who are obligated to help you because of kinship ties. In the Apache tribe of the Southwest, where life is demanding and often dangerous, every pubescent girl is affirmed in a sitike (SIT-ee-KAY) relationship with a group of nonconsanguineal kin who are pledged to help in times of famine, illness, or disaster.

    During the Apache girl's initiation ceremony, one of the most important rituals for the entire tribe, the girl and her family and clan affirm reciprocal obligations with the family and clan of her sponsor. In effect, the ceremony makes kinsmen of the tribe members who are not "blood kin," as we sometimes say in our culture. The New England poet Robert Frost said: "Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in." An Apache might say that the sitike relationship consists of people who, when you need help, have to help you. Wouldn't that be a nice addition to the nuclear family as we know it? See bol, toward the end of this chapter, for a very different perspective on in-laws.

saper vivere (Italian)
To know how to handle people diplomatically. [verb]

Have you ever noticed that a blessed few people seem to have a way of getting through life without stepping on any toes? While there seem to be multitudes of people who act as if they were the only ones in the world with feelings (try a traffic jam or a crowded bus or subway to see this characteristic exhibited in full force), there is a rarer, quieter breed of person who knows how to deal with strangers, friends, colleagues, clerks, superiors, and subordinates without bruising anybody's feelings. The Italians would say that this person "knows how to live": saper vivere (suh-pear VEE-VAIR-ay). The challenge facing all of us in an increasingly hostile urban environment is not only to emulate such a person but to convince others to behave in a similarly sensitive manner. The theory of behavioral psychology is that you can increase the likelihood that a person will behave in a certain way by rewarding the person whenever he or she acts in the desired manner. The next time a rather undiplomatic person manages to get through a board meeting or a dinner party without leaving a trail of bruised egos, remark admiringly that he or she "really does saper vivere!"

mbuki-mvuki (Bantu)
To shuck off clothes in order to dance. [verb]

One nearly universal characteristic of human societies, no matter how different they might be in other aspects, is the social ritual known here as "having a party." Whether life is hard or easy, people seem to relish the opportunity to gather for the express purpose of not working and not acting in their normal manner. In most cultures, some form of intoxicant is used to loosen inhibitions, because a party, by definition, is the kind of ceremony in which people try to forget all the constraints and rules of everyday life, often with embarrassing results. And most cultures include some kind of dancing. When the people attending the party are single, the not-too-subtle overtones of mating ritual are added. And then, when the intoxicants have been circulating and the people have been laughing and dancing and the jukebox has been rocking, people who are ordinarily spectators in life suddenly get seized by the urge to perform.

    It can be assumed that the Bantu-speaking people of Africa must have a respectable heritage in the partying department, since they have a word, mbuki-mvuki, to describe the act of shucking off all clothing that hinders one's party performance! At least one scholar believes that this Bantu term is the direct precursor for the name that migrated up the Mississippi along with the music it described—boogie woogie. If you simply pronounce "boogie woogie" with a semblance of a German accent and say mmmmmm with relish before each word—"MMMMMbookie MMMMMvookie"—you can inform your friends about the newest/oldest term for "I'm getting into a serious party mood."

suilk (Scottish)
To swallow, gulp, suck with a slobbering noise. [verb]

In some cultures, loud belching after dinner is considered the height of good manners. In other cultures, deliberate performance of digestive sounds is definitely located at the "extremely rude" end of the social spectrum. To the people of Scotland, the act of swallowing food with an abnormal amount of noise is considered rude enough to merit a verb of its own. When animals became sick, Scottish farmers fed them a mixture of water, meal, and salt called suilka-drink. To note that somebody has commenced to suilk (SWILLK) their soup, then, is tantamount to comparing them to a sick animal. If there are unreformed suilkers in your family, introduce this word as a way of making a point without drawing even more attention to the fact that one of you sounds like a hog at a trough. In cases in which you intend to draw attention to the problem-eater's auditory performance, you can use the word to enforce a lesson in manners. Don't try this on anyone who angers easily, or you might end up wearing the offender's bowl of soup.

    "Where did you ever learn your extraordinary suilking technique?" you can ask, prompting your unsuspecting suilker into a perfect straight line.

    "What's suilking?" the offender will undoubtedly return.

    Then you can tell him about suilk.

rojong (Indonesian)
Mutual cooperation. [noun]

This word is closely related to another Indonesian word (gotong) that literally means "to carry a heavy burden together," but the Indonesians use rojong (roy-YONG) to connote the relationship among a group of people who are committed to accomplish a task of mutual benefit. In the days when America was a land of small farmers, the spirit of the barn-raising involved the kind of mutual cooperation the Indonesians refer to when they say "the villagers worked in rojong to build their new mosque."

    Perhaps we could use a word like this in the modern world, where the need for some focused spirit of community cooperation has grown so acute that some ecologists have characterized the primary global problem as a community problem—"the tragedy of the commons." The term goes back to the days when small farmers used a "common" area in the center of town to graze their cattle or sheep. As long as no members of the community grazed more cattle than their neighbors did, everybody got along. But when the town grew large enough so that people didn't relate to one another as members of a community, first one, then many, and finally too many individuals put their own welfare above that of the group and started grazing more cattle than the land could carry. The common areas all over the country then became overgrazed and didn't do anybody any good.

    Rojong may apply to people working in a variety of circumstances: community gardens, urban neighborhood tree-planting committees, block parties, PTA or church projects, cooperative day-care centers, issue-centered political action groups, energy conservation, health practices—any activities in which individuals relate to one another within a cooperative, community framework. See tjotjog, later in this chapter, for a related word.

lao (Chinese)
A respectful term used for older people. [adjective]

In America, most people have to make a long-distance call to talk to their grandparents. In China, the importance of the family has been a stable part of life for centuries. In the West, where the industrial revolution fragmented and scattered the traditional nuclear family, several generations no longer live together, as they still do in China. In China, grandparents are still likely to be primary caretakers of young children while their parents are working in fields, factories, or offices.

    With the decline of the social role of grandparents and the rise of a youth-oriented culture, our older people are often herded into "homes," or, if they are financially healthy, into "retirement communities." And our attitudes have changed along with these demographics. The older worker is no longer respected as a source of wisdom by the newer members of a work force, who are interested in learning new methods, and older members of the family are no longer universally revered as a link with the way things always have been done. Now that it looks like the demography is changing again, it is likely that our attitudes will change as well. With new attitudes comes the need for new words.

    The coming demographic change can be foreseen in the statistics that indicate a shift in the median age of our population: As the baby-boom generation grows older, our attitudes toward older people are bound to change. In the event that that change indicates a turn to more respectful modes of address, perhaps we should adopt the Chinese honorific lao (rhymes with "cow"), which can apply equally to one's great-grandfather or the senior member of an assembly line or management team. When social prejudices change, members of oppressed groups usually take the initiative in changing the language by insisting on respectful terms of address; the insistence by nonwhite males on being addressed as "Mister" was a linguistic component of the civil rights revolution; the advent of "Ms." as a nonsexist means of address went along with the women's movement. Perhaps the "gray rights" movement of the 1990s will be marked by your grandpa Tom's insistence on being addressed as "Lao Grandpa Tom."

(Continues...)