Lately i am fascinated by words.
it is remarkable to me that we actually understand each other.
usually, when we talk, we understand each other quite well.
despite the fact that our brains and souls are very individual.
my appeal to you is let’s invent new words.
comments and suggestions are highly welcome. perhaps we can make some words really popular?
if i understand correctly, ‘quiz’ was invented in the University of Chicago in the 60s.
Wikipedia adds this note:
There is a well-known myth about the word “quiz”, which says that in 1791 a Dublin theater owner named James Daly made a bet that he could introduce a word into the language within twenty-four hours. He then went out and hired a group of street urchins to write the word “quiz”, which was a nonsense word, on walls around the city of Dublin. Within a day, the word was common currency and had acquired a meaning (since no one knew what it meant, everyone thought it was some sort of test) and Daly had some extra cash in his pocket. However, there is no evidence to support the story, and the term was already in use before the alleged bet in 1791.[1]
my new word for this post is:
‘News it’.
what does it mean? ‘
news it! – something you say to someone who just bought a new item. ‘תתחדש’ in hebrew
perhaps the salespeople at Banana Republic will great you on the way out with ‘News it’, instead of ‘have a nice day’ or ‘thanks for shopping with us’
Tags: communication, first, language
Adisababa's Weblog 
November 28, 2009 at 15:59 |
This is great.
The complete story of תתחדש: It is from the Mishna, and it is part of the saying “תבלה ותתחדש” which is a nice word game. The word “wear”, even in English, has two meanings – dress up in something, and make it worn (=older and used). So the full saying, in Adiish – “Wear it and News it”.
נוהגין לומר לחבירו שלובש בגד חדש “תבלה ותתחדש”, אבל על מנעלים של עור אין אומרים, מפני שצריך להמית בעל חי כדי לייצר נעלים, וכתיב ורחמיו על כל מעשיו.
(רמ”א אות סי’ רכ”ג)
BTW, this word has an evil twin – תבלה. Try other languages – there is no such word. It is not “enjoy”, “have fun” is two words… The French have actually taken the word Kef from Arabic and coined a verb: Kiffer.
The verb לבלות in Hebrew comes from the same term – בלוי or “worn”. Two potential origins: לבלות את הזמן’ meaning “wear out the time”; or alternatively – when people went out, the greeting was תבלה, meaning “wear out the shoes” – in other words, dance a lot. In any case, the term stuck and now we also have בילוי (having fun).
November 29, 2009 at 17:21 |
guy, thanks, this is great