About book The Meaning Of Tingo And Other Extraordinary Words From Around The World (2015)
Another problematic entry in the dictionary sweepstakes. Based on this book (there's a followup volume, "Toujours Tingo", which I haven't read), and the author's own website:http://themeaningoftingo.blogspot.com/one is forced to the inexorable conclusion that Monsieur J de B is* extraordinarily gullible* incredibly lazy* a cynic who is onto a good thing and not above milking it for all it's worth* some disturbingly human combination of the above three.Personally, I opt for the fourth choice."The Meaning of Tingo" purports to be a collection of words in various languages which are essentially untranslatable. As such, they offer a unique view into the way different peoples and cultures look at the world, new insights into "the human condition" and blahdeblahdeblah ...People love this kind of shit. They lap it up. I'll be the first to admit - I'm a bit of a sucker for it myself. One of the appeals of learning a foreign language is that it does force you to look at the world a bit differently. And, on the surface, it would appear that "The meaning of Tingo" delivers up a rich feast. I mean, who could resist:razbliuto: 'the sentimental feeling you have about someone you once loved but no longer do' (Russian)Scheissenbedauern: ‘the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had expected’ (German)seigneur-terrasse: Someone who spends time, but not money, at a café. (French; literally, 'lord of the terrace')agobilles: a burglar's tools. (German)The problem is, none of the words above actually exists. Something Monsieur J de B could have presumably found out if he had cracked a dictionary, or consulted even one native French, Russian, or German speaker. That German speaker, or indeed any student of German, could have told him that a 'word' such as 'Scheissenbedauern' could not exist, as it violates the basic rules for constructing compound words in the language. But, no, it appears that whatever minimal research he did was conducted exclusively online. Now there's a recipe for accuracy and attention to detail.How about:sucrer les fraises: to die (literally, "to sugar the strawberries"aardappel: Dutch for "potato" (literally, 'hard apple')koshatnik: a dealer in stolen cats.Nope. Nope. And nope again."Sucrer les fraises" does exist in French, but it is used to describe a Parkinson-like tremor, not the act of dying. 'Aardappel' means 'earth-apple'. 'Koshatnik', if it means anything at all, might be used to describe a 'cat-lover' or 'cat person', but 'dealer in stolen cats' suggests that someone's leg is being pulled.And that's the fundamental problem with this superficially appealing book. One Amazon reviewer, a native Russian speaker, identifies 80% of the Russian 'words' as being unrecognizable, garbled, or non-existent. There are similar objections from native Chinese, French, German, and Turkish speakers.Which leads to my scoring:Breadth of coverage: 2Research: 0Usability: 2Charm: 0 (because it's not charming to lead your readership down the garden path with ignorance masquerading as fact, no matter how idiosyncratically entertaining)This book is moderately entertaining rubbish.Two stars.
I have another book similar to this called The Meaning of Liff, which is much funnier than this book simply because it's meant to be funny.For example:"Polloch(n) - one of those tiny ribbed-plastic and aluminium foil tubs of milk served on trains enabling you to carry one safely back to your compartment where you can spill the contents all over your legs in comfort trying to get the bloody thing open."I mean, who hasn't done that!? Genius!If this book was aimed at being funny it would be much more entertaining. As it is, the words are incomprehensible (apart from the French and German ones - and only because I took these subjects at school) and so you have no real chance to memorise them to impress your friends with your command of... inanity.My favourite way of reading the book was to forget about the words (in fact, I didn't bother reading most of them) and concentrate instead on the meanings. In this way, I could use each little phrase/meaning as a momentary meditation where I tried to imagine myself into the scenarios and scenery being described.I therefore particularly enjoyed the words that dealt with happiness and sunshine, and not so much the ones about death and horror.Plus - I think the author has been duped by internet descriptions of some of the words. For example, the meaning of 'Tingo' as expressed in the book is something like 'gradually stealing the contents of someone's house by borrowing them and not bringing them back'. I found this definition on a site called 'Urban Dictionary' dated 2009. I can just imagine someone making this up and posting it on this site for the author of this book to find and base a whole book on. Either that or he posted it himself.Either way, it's me as a reader that's ending up as the fool.The other mention I found of 'Tingo' is that it is a Latin word that means 'saturate/soak' or 'tinge' as in when you soak something in a dye to give it a tinge of purple (for example).Still - the mental picture of people emptying other people's houses by borrowing stuff is mildly amusing - so long as it's not me they're borrowing from.
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A delightful book for people interested in language and trivia. I found myself copying down words and phrases to incorporate into my vocabulary, including the Persian sanud, "the exercise of the mind upon an unprofitable subject"; the Japanese phrase suna o kamu yo na, "like chewing sand"; and the Indonesian desus, "a quiet and smooth sound as someone farting but not very loudly." I was kind of disappointed that there was no scatological section however; I know Pennsylvania Dutch (the language of the Amish) has a fine word meaning "globules of poop that get caught in your pubic hair."
—Meaghan
Interesting book with some funny entries, but I was unable to read it from cover to cover. Many of the words seem unpronounceable to me, and there are no guides on how to say any of the foreign words. Also, I found a few instances where the author might have mentioned an odd English equivalent to a particular phrase but didn't. It made me question just how well he studied his own language before rushing off to praise the oddities of others. For what it's worth, FORMICATION is the imagined sensation of skin crawling with insects.
—J.M.
Really just a dictionary of cool words from other languages...he goes on about how specific some of those terms are, but when I think of specific fields of study like biology or anatomy I'm pretty sure there are specific words for just those things he's describing, like the part of your body that is the back of the knee - in English, it's "popliteal fossa" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poplitea..., in the book there's a refence to this as "jahja" (in Wagiman, Australia) or "waal" (in Afrikaans).Anyway, I think the concept is great, but could have been taken a lot further than just a glossary of world languages. An expansion on to the culture that uses that language and WHY they have these crazy words or sayings for example. The best part of the book, that induced me to actually LAUGH OUT LOUD, was this inventive curse: "zolst farliren aleh tseyner achitz eynm, un dos zol dir vey ton (Yiddish)" means 'may you lose all your teeth but one and may that one ache'. Now that's got some thought put into how you may make someone suffer!
—Kristine
