If You Like Word Play, Proverbs

[orang37]

http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/24.../#comment-24081

Sawasdee Khrup, TV Friends,

Enter a contest with your own original Proverb ?

... if you like to see "language in motion" : you might enjoy this.

The New York Times page linked to above has links to Schott's Vocab, a fascinating site (and don't miss his Almanac if you visit). Comments are moderated : looks "kid sister safe" to me.

All language is in flux, and even semantic habits of a lifetime can be modified in ways we are often not aware of : example : last year I was at a meeting of a writer's group, and someone (from England) used the word "punter" : well, I'm American, and my father was a college football coach (why I became a Poet, why I hated sports), and I grew up only knowing the word "punter" as in American usage : to kick the football : but when I interpreted, without being conscious of it, the word "punter" last year, I interpreted it as in the English usage of the term meaning "customer," "gambler," "patron." And so, the sentence did not make any sense to me in context; I had to puzzle over what he meant before my "American" flavour definition "kicked in," so to speak.

A category of words that fascinate me are words made-up by people who are, we might say, in the patois of these times, are "lo so," perhaps in partial mockery of the language of folks considered "hi-so."

For example in the early nineteenth century you have words invented, mainly in the western part of America, like highfalutin, rambunctious, absquatulate, vamoose, blustrification. If you like to know about words like these : http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm

So, finally we get to something about Thailand : I'd be very curious to know if you know of any Thai words that perhaps have the "whimsical" delight of American neologisms like 'highfalutin.'

No, I don't know any; if I were to propose "candidates" : there's one wonderful phrase "salop saloptsilai" (yeah, I'm sure I'm transliterating it all wrong : don't know if it's one word or more) which I am told means kind of "violently crazy," perhaps "emotionally unpredictable" ? And perhaps with a "tonal" language you have whole dimensions of being to be ambiguous (or pun) just using the tones : hypothesis : less incentive to create elaborate "compound" words ?

Only thing I am sure of is that modern Thai is as full of new words as most Farangs are full of ....

best, ~o:37;

Edited July 26, 2009 by PeaceBlondie

[Rasseru]

Themselves?

[haybilly]

I was 'informed', some time ago, that the phrase 'Top Salop Salai' meant, approx., ' kick you unconscious'--or something similarly descriptive--can't think why anyone might have wanted to say that to me!