Comments on: Body Words (98)

By: Town Andrews

Town Andrews — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:19:40 +0000

Great, jam-packed, fast-paced show. Left me breathless…

Just for fun, I’m making my comments/additions relate to a theme: Joints.

I don’t think you guys fit in any of these, but I could be mistaken:

Knee: “to take a knee” football reference, but useful as metaphor?
Knuckle: “to knuckle down” to get to work, get busy
Shoulder: “shoulder to the wheel” to get to work, get busy
Hip: lots of uses. cool, trendy. “hit me on the hip” wireless lingo - call me
Elbow: to walk with, to accompany. Probably from Cowboy Slang
Wrist: “Limp-wristed” Slang for effeminate or epicene
Ankle: to walk. Also a Cowboyism.

By: Martin Winter

Martin Winter — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:19:50 +0000

I totally agree with you on prepositions. I think it’s the most difficult part of English for me as well — so it goes both ways

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:05:10 +0000

Thank you, Martin. Ah, these prepositions! As I’ve said many times, they possess subtleties of meaning that are devilish. It’s sometimes tough for a non-native speaker like myself, who isn’t using the language on a very high level every day, to keep in touch with these differences in meaning.

I do like “Herzschmerz.” Let’s see if we can convince Americans to start using it! It’s got a nice ring to it.

By: Martin Winter

Martin Winter — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:00:11 +0000

Thanks for yet another great episode. Since you mentioned a German idiom related to the heart, I thought I’d give a bit more clarification on this:

“Etwas liegt mir am Herzen” has a positive connotation and is roughly equivalent to “it is close to my heart”, meaning being fond of something or somebody.

On the other hand, “etwas liegt mir auf dem Herzen” is more neutral and refers to something that is an inner burden, something you have had on your mind and would like to talk about.

Also, I’m not sure if this word has come into English usage like “Zeitgeist” and “Schadenfreude”, but I really like “Herzschmerz” (a description for figurative heart pain, lovesickness) for its rhyme, which gives the painful subject a bit of a humorous twist.

By: Charles Hodgson

Charles Hodgson — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:35:09 +0000

This is ski season and this year (thank heavens) we’ve got lots of snow. That means I’ve been busy with mission critical tasks such as waxing and getting out onto the trails.

Unfortunately this has also meant I have not caught up with much of my podcast listening backlog.

But as I grabbed my iPod on the way out the door this morning two words jumped off the tiny screen at me; Body Words. The rest of the backlog will have to wait.

Thank you Word Nerds for your kindness (again)!

I also thought I’d add two more unsuspected words to Howard’s list of “hand words” The Greek word for “hand” gave us both our English words chiropractor and surgeon.