saudades; Portuguese: nostalgia for a time that can never fully be recovered.

English has viable translations:

Iktsuarpok - "itchy pants"
Zechpreller - "deadbeat/stiff"
Alghunj - "con artist"

simplisme; French:Stubborn belief in reality despite the yammering of corrupt Europeans.

Kinda like 'ratfucker'.

Weltschmerz -- The German literally means "world pain", describing a wistful sadness regarding the human condition, a sort of pessimistic weltanschauung where the general feeling is that you're sitting on the mountaintop muttering "Alas, Babylon." I have never discovered an English equivalent for the concept.

(Scratches head.) I was not aware there was a language called "Siberian."

FUCHA Portuguese

To use company time and resources for one's own purposes.

That's odd, I thought the English word for that was blogger.

Koro (chinese): the hystrical belief that one's penish is shrinking.

oops. that's "penis" not "penish"

here's one. If you make that pssssht or pffft sound, you're "scoffing."

What about when you make that frustrated gutteral "aaacch" or "uuuuchhh"? What's the word for making that sound?

People do that all the time and I can't think of a one-word way to describe it.

'Penish.'
Was that Sean Connery speaking?

For the first one, on going outside to look for someone frequently--meth heads in LA call that "ghost busting" when they would look out the window every five minutes waiting for the dealer to show up with the stuff.

Sitzpinkler - German, for a man who sits down to urinate. Of course, it's an insult. :)

Weltschmerz -- The German literally means "world pain", describing a wistful sadness regarding the human condition -
Michael

"It's so sad, the way people live. Oh well, into the oven with them."

Also, Zechpreller: “A person who leaves a restaurant without paying.” seems like dine-n-dash. Dine-n-dasher, if you will.

Kochgelegenheit - term used for an apartment with a kitchen or other cooking setup.

Those Germans: is there anything they can't say with one word?

Vuja-de: The weird feeling that none of this has happened before.

There's a sound, in dialectic Italian, that sounds in English like "beeeeeeeeee....."

With the sound kind of trailing off at the end. If I had the ability, I'd make the e's get smaller and smaller in the progression so you'd get the idea.

It is the sound you make when you've been gossiping and heard something so outrageous or scandalous. It is a long drawn out gasp of shock.

In Ebonics it would be "Mmmmmmm! Nuh- UH!!"

The tone rises through the 'eee' progression even as the sound trails off. But sometimes, when the news is really bad, it is deeply toned and hushed, and the tone drops as it progresses.

And when the news is just kind of 'there,' but not a shocker, it's a simple, "be" or even 'bo.' "Bo" is more of a 'well, there you go,' kind of a sound.

The real ginnies here who have heard it from their parents or grandparents will know the sound that I am talking about.

I ain't an eye-talian personally but I know *exactly* what you're talking about. The "beeeeeee" noise is often accompanied by a yo-yo like vertically dropping and rising hand gesture, isn't it?

Italian hands - expressive as all get-out.

Ahhhh, mid-westerners and southern folk tryin' to 'cypher I-talyun.
Where'd y'all learn about I-tal-yuns, the Olive Garden or Tony Roma's?

Ummm, Purple Avenger is of Sicilian extraction.

Perhaps these Italian dissers would like to wake up tomorrow with a severed horse head in their beds?

Not being a PETA member, doing that sort of thing doesn't get me overly upset.

Koro (chinese): the hystrical belief that one's penis is shrinking.

In English the word for shrinking testicles is "wife."

"Polynya." Russian. A thin part of the ice covering a body of water. As in "We want to surface in the Arctic Ocean, but we need to find a polynya we can break through."

Vuja-de: The weird feeling that none of this has happened before.

In English the word for shrinking testicles is "wife."

Thanks for the laughs.

Yeah adding German words is almost cheating, since they often just glue two or more words together, so where we would say "dine and dasher" (which is what most restaurant people call them), they'd just say something like "dineandasher."

In his classic article on language "The Onomastic Cringe" -- which should be required reading in schools all over the world ( see http://olimu.com/Journalism/Texts/Commentary/Ethnonymy.htm ) he notes that is favorite german word is Hottentotenpotentatenstantenattentäter -- meaning, "one who assails the aunt of a Hottentot potentate."

Here's some more your readers ought to be aware of:

gosudarskvensillik (Russian): A person who helps to elect an illiterate president and then has to pretend the "leader" knows what he's doing.

ffghedliehn (Gaelic): Believes strongly in a "culture of life" but champions the slaughter of innocent civilians if they are of a different religious faith.

schnitzelkopf (German): one forced by ideology to defend Karl Rove and Tom DeLay as good 'public servants'.

onanijin (Japanese): thinks that a 51% majority ought to be able to ride roughshod over the other 49%.

putaquerista (Castillian): believes that a superdeity created the world, but that it's also OK to stripmine, clearcut, and develop unspoiled areas as long as somebody makes a quick profit.

Ain't language fun?

Damn, I wish some language had a word for a nasty little moron who sprays idiotic comments all over a thread.

Think that's "Raven," Carl.

No, "Raven" means one who likes to hear himself make noise and shits all over the place.

Kind of like the ones who roost right outside my bedroom window and wake me up at 6:30 every morning.

I like Alex's definition better.

Damn, I wish some language had a word for a nasty little moron who sprays idiotic comments all over a thread.

"Leftist"

For Saudades (first comment) -- Proust's masterwork is "Recherche du Temps Perdu", often translated as "Remembrance of Things Past", but really more like "Seeking for Time Lost Forever". Saudades sounds like the perfect word to capture the whole feeling.

Jamais vu (not vuja de) is the feeling that one has never, ever been in this situation before. It's what Ace will get if he ever gets the chance to feel up a woman.

Schaudenfreude is German for 'shameful joy', the relish one takes in another's misfortune.

Cedarford, in any language, means "Jew-hater".

Irrumare is the Latin verb meaning "to forcefully make another provide fellatio". Featured a couple of weeks ago on the Catullus thread.

In Finnish, Sissu is a concept that, as far as I can tell, wraps up grit, guts, manliness, self-reliance, stubbornness and independence all together.

Zechpreller: German. “A person who leaves a restaurant without paying.”

There is an English word for this: "Thief".

ffghedliehn (Gaelic): Believes strongly in a "culture of life" but champions the slaughter of innocent civilians if they are of a different religious faith.

Now, you're being a little tough on those Muslims who declare a Jihad and... oh, wait, I get it! You're talking about us. Witty! You should write professionally for Margaret Cho!

Yankeessuck - Latin for loser Red Sox fans who are denial of inferiority.

(raving)Raven == moonbat

Sissu is a concept that, as far as I can tell, wraps up grit, guts, manliness, self-reliance, stubbornness and independence all together.

Good word. I think we get close with 'Grit,' as you include, but I don't suppose that necessarily entails 'self reliance.'

Kinda doubt it would catch on here, as Sissu calls to mind 'sissy,' it's opposite, at least to me.

But then again we have 'temerity' which I have to stop every time I read and remind myself doesn't mean a 'timorous' but close to its opposite.

die Gemütlichkeit

coziness is the closest in English, but it's really a "happy home feeling you get from the hearth and momma and the kids and all"

Oh, and in the south, we have nuanced expressions. Such as "naked" and "nekkid".

"Naked" means you don't have no clothes on.

"Nekkid" means you don't have no clothes on and you up to somethin.

Korean:

kettawhata-kettawhatta-kettawhatta-hay-oh

means: "I went/came - went/came - went/came"

They use that for times when you decide to leave without something, decide you need it, take a step back to get it, then you decide you don't really need it, so you take a step away, then you change your mind and decide that you really, really DO need to get that, so you change direction, then you change your mind again, so you decide to ... and so forth

It helps to say it fast:

ketta-whatta-ketta-whatta-ketta-whatta-hay-oh

"Perhaps these Italian dissers"

Dissing? Nothing of the sort. Why, some of my best friends ...

seriously, though, I noticed an actual Roman, in Rome, doing this. Not in the Olive Garden, nor yet on the Sopranos.

I'd always thought that Sicilians did the whole hand-gesture shtick even more, though ... especially the S. Italian and Sicilian communities which strongly preserve their original Greek identity.

And of course, when it comes to hand-gestures, the Greeks are off the f'in charts.

/gross generalizations

Schaudenfreude is German for 'shameful joy', the relish one takes in another's misfortune.

Like when you go to some warm sunny place on vacation in the middle of winter, then check USA Today for the weather in your home town, hoping it's just really cold and miserable.

C'mon, I know you've done it.

That old eskimos and snow thing had me going, until somebody pointed out we have a zillion words for snow, too. Like snow, sleet, squall, white-out, drift, slush, powder, hard-pack and blizzard. I'm guessing the eskimos have a word specifically for "crusty and firm on top, but when you put your weight on it, you break right through" (I walked home through several miles of that once, and I sure developed a word for it). And probably a few others, but we're no slouches.

And I think we're supposed to say "inuit" or something now, aren't we?

Dave in Texas:

Nice phrase.

Ahh, I miss Lewis Grizzard.

That 'beeeee' thing was not a diss to Italians.

I sure miss my nonna.

No. You canna taka eet back. Once she said, she said. vaffanculo! vai in culo!

DB,

yep, I do too. a funny man who died too young.

My favorite Japanese word (pointed out by a friend) is "tsujigiri." The literal translation is "highway cutting," and the actual meaning is "to test how well a samurai sword cuts by using it on a passer-by." You can look it up in the unabridged Nelson's.