1. Babia majora
2. Babraham Lincoln
3. Croatoan
4. Cromulent
5. Embiggen
6. Fecoventilatory collision
7. Grok
8. Hurm
9. Kimota
10. Macguffin
11. Mellon
12. Mithrandir
13. Splunge
14. Massachusetts, plural noun -
15. Dorchester, noun -
18. Yarmouth, verb -
20. What significance does this source hold for the team that won last semester's contest?
English is a nifty language and all, but it has its flaws. For instance, there are some ideas and concepts that we just don't have any exact words for.
Below is a list of eighteen actual words from various foreign languages that don't have an exact English translation; and you will find a list of eighteen definitions. Match the word with its definition.
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1. |
adjal |
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2. |
animateur |
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3. |
bricoleur |
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4. |
dohada |
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5. |
esprit d'escalier |
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6. |
faux frais |
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7. |
fisselig |
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8. |
fucha |
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9. |
katzenjammer |
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10. |
kekau |
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11. |
korinthenkacker |
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12 |
mamihlapinatapei |
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13. |
ohrwurm |
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14. |
ponte |
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15. |
razbliuto |
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16. |
schlimmbesserung |
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17. |
tartle |
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18. |
zwischenraum |
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A. |
A song that becomes wildly popular particularly quickly |
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B. |
An action intended as an improvement that instead makes matters worse |
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C. |
Extraordinarily severe hangover |
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D. |
Flustered to the point of incompetence |
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E. |
Items one overlooks when making a budget |
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F. |
Meaningful look between two people which expresses mutual unstated feelings |
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G. |
Particularly unusual pregnancy cravings |
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H. |
Person overly concerned with minute, trivial details |
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I. |
Person who creates things by tinkering around until something works |
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J. |
Person with the ability to explain highly technical and difficult concepts to the layman |
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K. |
The especially clever remark or comeback one thinks of only after the conversation has just ended |
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L. |
The extra day you take off between a national holiday and the weekend when the holiday falls on Tuesday or Thursday |
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M. |
The feeling a person has for someone s/he used to love but no longer does |
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N. |
The predestined hour of one's own death |
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O. |
The sensation of waking up from a severe nightmare |
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P. |
The space in between things |
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Q. |
To temporarily forget the name of a person or thing |
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R. |
Using the time and resources of one's place of employment for one's personal benefit |
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1. What is the lexicographic significance of the following list? Priest, town, earl, this, streale, ward, thing, theft, worth, then
2. What 2 homonyms are the furthest apart from one another in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition?
3. In Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition, what is the longest word featuring all five vowels, appearing in order (though not necessarily adjoining) and each appearing only once?
4. As above, but including "y" as well?
1. What TV character was horrified to discover she had printed thousands of campaign buttons reading "Lance Brockwell for Mayro"?
2. If you saw a shop sign saying "Veruci Fucking Ghoti", what might you buy there? Justify this.
3. The only misspelling in the entire Unabomber Manifesto appears to be this phrase.
4. Dan Quayle's favorite starch:
5. Tony Blair's favorite day:
1. A fan site says she prefers G-string panties to Calvin Kleins, but this pop star's name anagrams to a group of Calvinists...
2. ...And one of her sponsors anagrams to a member of different religious sect.
3. This three-word phrase for a part of a musical instrument anagrams to a two-phrase for where that part might have been found.
4. This one-word title of a 70s movie with Laurence Olivier anagrams to a 70s movie with Burt Reynolds.
5. One won an AL batting title in the 1960s, the other a Cy Young award in the 1980s - both for the same team. Their last names are anagrams of each other. Who are they?
6. What country anagrams to the name of an actress?
7. A place where most of you participating live becomes a place within that place where you live, sometimes.
8. This operetta's title can be anagrammed to a phrase describing that title.
9. This U.S. President anagrams to a three-word insult that Saddam Hussein might have used to describe him. Who is he and what is the insult?
1. What are the ten words created in the five turns of the sample game in the standard Scrabble instructions?
TURN ONE:
TURN TWO:
TURN THREE:
TURN FOUR:
TURN FIVE:
2. In Woody Allen's short story "The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers" a pair of pen pals fumble through a hilariously miscommunicated chess match, in which they have totally different understandings about whose pieces are where. In an effort to restart the correspondence on a better foot, one of them suggests they play pen pal Scrabble . He picks a seemingly thorny set of letters which just happen to spell what high-scoring word meaning "a supervisor of irrigation canals"?
3. What is the longest official Scrabble dictionary word without a vowel (or a Y)?
4. You've got a Q, but no U. What are the two longest legal Scrabble words you can make?
5. On the "Bob Newhart Show," Howard once used all his letters to form a word which he claimed was "someone fond of zoos." On a challenge, it turns out to be a legal word, but a type of sponge. What's the word?
6. On "Saturday Night Live," a character once played a three-letter word and claimed it was a picnic food. It was challenged on the grounds there should be a "W" at the end. What's the word, who's the character?
7. "Kwyjibo" would score 152 points if played on a Scrabble board as one character attempted, claiming it means "a fat balding North American ape with no chin." Who made this play?
1. In a recent Sprint ad, a coach's request for "a back-up for O'Neal" is misheard as what?
2. Malacy McCourt's autobiography, "A Monk Swimming" takes it name from where? What's the correct phrase?
3. What kind of advertising did Bush deny employing in the 2000 campaign?
4. Please correct the following misheard song lyrics (and identify the song):
a) The girl with colitis goes by
b) 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy
c) Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard
d) Killed in a bar when he was only three
e) The ants are my friends
f) There's a bathroom on the right
g) Wrapped up like a douche, another roller in the night
h) Islands of Seals
i) Hold me closer, Tony Danza
j) Oh, they have slain the Earl of Morray and Lady Mondegreen
5. Why is this last one significant?
1. In Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Brian attempts to write "Romans go home" in Latin on the wall, but in fact he writes what?
2. And to what does it translate, according to the centurion who accosts him, in English?
3. What does Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" translate to, in Berlin?
4. In the 1960's what Pepsi slogan was purportedly mistranslated into Chinese with disastrous results? What was the mistranslation?
5. KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) found that its "Finger-Lickin' Good" slogan was translated into what in Chinese?
6. When Ford Motor Co. marketed the Pinto in Brazil, they discovered that "pinto" was Brazilian slang for what unfortunate phrase?
The above is a translation of particular phrase from English into each of the twenty-five or so languages available on a particular web translation engine (translating back into English each time). While this gobbledygook is utterly senseless, we do think you can identify the original phrase and the languages into which it is translated in each of the samples below.
1. Eu digo "é pato estação" e eu digo "incendiar"!
2. Jáøku "ono [is] drahou...ek roèn" doba" a jáøku "horeèka"!
3. Digo "está zabullir temporada" y digo "fuego"!
4. Ako sabihin "ito ay umilag rikaduhan" at ako sabihin "isisante"!
5. Je dis "le c'est se baisser vivement saison" et je dis "tirer"!
6. Ich stehen "es ist ducken würzen" und ich stehen "abdrücken"!
7. Ég segja "það er önd árst"ð" og ég segja "eldur"!
8. Io per esempio "è anatra stagione" e io per esempio "fuoco"!
9. Suchaj "to jest kaczka pora" i suchaj "zapaliæ"!
10. Én mond "ez kacsa évszak" és én mond "kilõ"!
11. Jag säga "den er anka årstiden" och jag säga "elden"!
12. Ddeuda "dydy drochi blasa" a ddeuda "danio"!
13. I-kirjain sanoa "[it] on. [duck] vuodenaika" ja i-kirjain sanoa "tuli"!
14. Ja ono ...to je kazano "posrijedi je patka godi...nje doba" i ja ono ...to je kazano "vatra"!
15. The original phrase:
A number of movies feature a significant, notable or otherwise vital word. For the movie, give the word; for the word, give the movie:
1. Citizen Kane
2. Mary Poppins
3. The Usual Suspects**
4. Four Weddings and a Funeral
5. The Shining
6. West Side Story
7. Monty Python's "Buying a Bed" sketch
8. Silent Movie***
9. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (three sacred words)*
12. *What fourth word is notable in this context, eventually?
13. **What was this character's other name (significant to this particular bonus)?
14. ***Who said this word?
15. V'ger
16. Fiddle-dee-dee
17. Gub
18. Plastics
19. Klaatu barada nikto (actually three films)
22. Klaatu barada nikto features in an interesting way in a fourth film, though this fact is never noted in the film or its credits. What is the film and how is the phrase used in it?
But he DID....fill in the missing word or words in each Yogi Berra quote:
1. "All pitchers are liars or _________________."
2. "Baseball is ninety percent mental. The _________________ is physical."
3. "He hits from both sides of the plate. He's ___________________"
4. "I don't know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had ___________________."
5. "I'm not going to buy my kids an ___________________. Let them walk to school like I did."
6. "I never said ___________________ ."
7. "It ain't the heat, it's the ___________________."
8. "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids ___________________."
9. "Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents ___________________."
10. "It's like ___________________ all over again."
11. "You can observe a lot just by ___________________."
12. "You should always go to other people's funerals, otherwise, they won't ___________________."
13. "When you come to a fork in the road, ___________________."
1. This selection from the "Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century" ends with a word whose letters all appear in its title. Which book is it?
2. In last month's 23-20 overtime win against Amherst, the Lord Jeffs featured a running back with 6 vowels in his name, including at least one of each (plus a Y). Name him.
3. In "Duck Soup," Groucho doesn't appear to mind being called a "swine" or a "worm." But what's the one word that drives him to violence?
4. In 1843, British general Sir Charles Napier, during the First Afghan War, is said to have sent the following telegram home following a three-day battle: "Peccavi." Why?
6. What is the lasting contribution to popular culture of the early 20th-century comic strip "Knocko the Monk"?
7. What's significant about Ernest Vincent Wright's novel Gadsby and George Perec's La Disparation (A Void)?
8. What's significant about Perec's short story, The Exeter Text: Jewels, Secrets, Sex ?
9. And, inevitably in a Words Bonus, one must ask: according to George Carlin, what are the Seven Dirty Words That You Cannot Say on Television?
10. And, inevitably, to follow-up, what are the three "two-way" words that you can only use in the right context?
But, there are some two-way words. There are double-meaning words. Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? 'And the cock crowed three times.''Hey, the cock the cock crowed three times. It's in the bible.' There are some Two-way words, like it's okay for Kirk Goudy(sp?) to say 'Roberto Clemente has two balls on him.' But he can't say, 'I think he hurt his balls on that play Tony, don't you? He's holding them. He must have hurt them by God.' And the other two-way word that goes with that one is prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. Yes, you can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick. No, no."