Comments on: favorite word of the day

By: Martina Roßmann

Martina Roßmann — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:23:24 +0000

Cliff, that’s about right :-) although I’ve never heard of a Kurschatten in a platonic sense.

NewWrldYankee, I may have to “borrow” your 10$ (US or Canadian?) vocab word a day idea :-)

By: NewWrldYankee

NewWrldYankee — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:12:16 +0000

I don’t quite get it yet, but maybe that is half the point. It is like defining the word undefinable.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:08:23 +0000

It's not (necessarily) dirty. Your mom would probably be OK with it. Martina, please contradict me here if I'm putting the wrong words in your mouth, but the point is that Kur is a concept that is hard to translate. As a result of that, Kurschatten (I had to look that one up) is even harder, because the underlying concept of Kur isn't clear to begin with. A Kur is sort of the treatment you get at a health spa you visit as part of a medical presciption, I guess (near as I can tell; I've never been on one). A Kurschatten is your Kur-buddy or romantic tryst partner, depending on context, as described over at dict.leo.org

By: NewWrldYankee

NewWrldYankee — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:54:02 +0000

Now I need to know what that means, Martina! Why do I have a funny feeling it is a word my mom wouldn’t want me to know? Hmm…
Ever since I came to Hungary, I feel like my English is going down the tubes. So my roommate, who is canadian, and I made a pact – we have to use one 10 dollar vocab word a day. Like lugubrious, or reprehensible, or superlative, and so on. It’s working…I think!

By: Martina

Martina — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:51:14 +0000

And how about an English word for “Kur” ;-) ? (Or “Kurschatten” for that matter….)

By: Cliff

Cliff — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:00:41 +0000

Wow, OK, so it's not just a theoretical word! What cracks me up is when the natives are having a conversation in English with Americans visiting our office and stumble a bit and look to me for help, asking (for example) "What's the English word for Einzugsermächtigung?" There may be a turn of phrase for that (it's "direct debit authorization"), but it's not necessarily something people will understand — especially if the underlying concept is foreign (haha) in the first place. Case in point: we, the citizens of the U.S., still primarily write and cash paper checks to express movement into and out of our bank accounts for everyday transactions.

By: Martina

Martina — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:06:00 +0000

Ya gotta love those long German words :-)

And you know what? Postal workers, to which I no longer count myself since August, use that word in normal work-related conversations and never think twice of it.

By: Mom

Mom — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:37:50 +0000

Let me know how you work this one into a conversation! And if you plan a way to do it, bring a camera; I bet even a native would be surprised to hear it. :) I’m going to pass this on to Natalie. You can not help but smile at a word like that, that really functions. The context makes it all work.