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Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Catalog of Beautiful Untranslatable Words from Around the World

Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Catalog of Beautiful Untranslatable Words from Around the World
by Maria Popova The euphoria experienced as you begin to fall in love, the pile of books bought but unread, the coffee “threefill,” and other lyrical linguistic delights. “Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf said in the only surviving recording of her voice, a magnificent meditation on the beauty of language. But what happens when words are kept apart by too much unbridgeable otherness? “Barring downright deceivers, mild imbeciles and impotent poets, there exist, roughly speaking, three types of translators,” Vladimir Nabokov opened his strongly worded opinion on translation. Such beautifully elusive words is what writer and illustrator Ella Frances Sanders, a self-described “intentional” global nomad, explores in Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World (public library), published shortly before Sanders turned twenty-one. Norwegian, noun Japanese, noun Arabic, noun Yiddish, noun Hindi, noun Sanders writes in the introduction: Related:  Parole

The Best Domain Name Generator Ever: Impossibility! Synonyms for words commonly used in student's writing Amazing- incredible, unbelievable, improbable, fabulous, wonderful, fantastic, astonishing, astounding, extraordinary Anger- enrage, infuriate, arouse, nettle, exasperate, inflame, madden Angry- mad, furious, enraged, excited, wrathful, indignant, exasperated, aroused, inflamed Answer- reply, respond, retort, acknowledge Ask- question, inquire of, seek information from, put a question to, demand, request, expect, inquire, query, interrogate, examine, quiz Awful- dreadful, terrible, abominable, bad, poor, unpleasant Beautiful - pretty, lovely, handsome, attractive, gorgeous, dazzling, splendid, magnificent, comely, fair, ravishing, graceful, elegant, fine, exquisite, aesthetic, pleasing, shapely, delicate, stunning, glorious, heavenly, resplendent, radiant, glowing, blooming, sparkling Begin - start, open, launch, initiate, commence, inaugurate, originate Brave - courageous, fearless, dauntless, intrepid, plucky, daring, heroic, valorous, audacious, bold, gallant, valiant, doughty, mettlesome

Syllables, Scrabble Letters, and Picking Brand Names - Rich Barton | HopperandDropper.com The Completely Ownable, “Made-Up” Consumer Brand Wins Long Term I wrote this as a private email in 2006 and just refreshed for the blog “Should we call our site something literal or should we make up a new word?” This is a question I often get asked by consumer product/service entrepreneurs. In light of Microsoft’s re-launch of Microsoft MSN Live Search as “Bing”, I thought it timely to re-fresh some old thoughts I’ve had about naming, words, and branding. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I believe it is much more powerful long-term to make up a new word (e.g., Expedia, Zillow, or recently Glassdoor, 3 words that my teams have created) than it is to use a literal word (e.g., Travel.com, RealEstate.com, or Jobreviews.com). The siren’s song of a literal brand or a brand that is evolved from a literal word is hard to resist. Homonyms and Branding I know you have busily been thinking of counter-examples, so I’ll try to head off one of them at the pass: Homonyms. Acronyms and Branding

Tagxedo Come nasce il naming dei prodotti Intervista a Béatrice Ferrari – la massima esperta di naming in Italia. Consulente da anni per importanti brand nazionali e internazionali, ci svela qui alcuni segreti del suo lavoro. 1. Béatrice, perché è così importante il naming per un prodotto? Alcuni manager ritengono che tutto dipenda dall'investimento pubblicitario alle spalle. Lei cosa gli risponde? Il naming è fondamentale perché dura per sempre: non possono esserci ripensamenti, a meno di avere tanti soldi a disposizione. Inoltre, siamo in tempi di ottimizzazione di budget, e un buon nome consente di risparmiare su tante attività a seguito del lancio del prodotto. Tutto dipende dalla bontà della proposta commerciale e non dall’investimento pubblicitario. 2. Guardiamoci attorno prima di imbarcarci in strade senza uscita: da GOOGLE ad APPLE, dagli orologi HOOPS alla cancelleria LEGAMI o MOLESKINE, da SKYPE a VIRGIN o BLABLACAR: la maggior parte dei brand name di maggior successo non spiegano il prodotto. 3. Assolutamente no! 4. 5.

9 Foreign Terms More Awful Than Any English Profanity The great thing about language is that it reveals so much about the speaker. Especially when we're talking about slang -- the fact that every gamer knows what "teabagging" is speaks volumes. That's why two times before we've come up with lists of foreign slang words the English language desperately needs -- some words you hear and think, "That could only have come from ____." But then there's the flip side -- some languages have words for concepts so weird or off-putting that we can thank the stars we don't have any use for them in everyday English. For example ... #9. Hill Street Studios/Blend Images/Getty Images Means: To slap something with your penis. In 2008, a Dutch dictionary company declared the winner of its esteemed "word of the year" competition was swaffelen, which means "to whip out your penis and hit something with it." Byelikova_Oksana/iStock/Getty ImagesIn fairness, we'd totally hit that too. There are rules, of course. #8. tab1962/iStock/Getty Images #7. #6. #5.

Chaotic Shiny - Writing and RPG-Related Generators Graph words VisuWords Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate. Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. It's a dictionary! Visuwords™ uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers. The Visuwords™ Interface To use the applet you only need to type a word into the search query at the top of the page and press 'Enter'. You can zoom the model in and out by rolling the wheel on your mouse.

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