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Another Potentially-Useful Term I Just Made Up
A "passport word" is a word that means something general in another language, but which is imported into English to mean something specifically from a country or area where that language is used.
For example, "salsa." In Spanish, it just means "sauce," but in English it means a Mexican sauce. Similarly, "chai" is Hindi for "tea," but in English it refers to a specific type of Indian tea.
A passport word is similar to a loan word like "patio" or "soprano," but rather than retaining the same meaning it takes on a more specific meaning related to the area the word comes from. It is a subcategory of "false friend" -- a word which looks or sounds the same as a word in another language, but which means something different, like the Spanish word "embarazado" which means "pregnant" but sounds like "embarrassed."
Some examples of passport words:
* sombrero
* chorizo
* biscotti
* sensei
* anime
from http://slumbering.lungfish.com
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Can you think of others? I might suggest "angst" - German for "fear", but in English it has sort of foreboding, gothic, dare I say Germanic overtones.
PS. Hi everyone! I wish I had time to get back up to speed, but almost 3000 new posts in Miscellany alone! I miss you guys, and I'll try to check in more often.
It’s a potentially useful description, I think. Although I understand what’s being referred to in the suggestion that it is a subcategory of "false friend", I think in practice this is a bit of a sideshow. After all, surely the process underlying this ‘change of meaning’ is about the difference between denotation and connotation. For example, in the case of a new drink featuring an infusion of dried leaves, if your only connotative experience in the domestic culture is of ‘Indian’ tea then that is what the word will come to denote. If in the foreign culture you have a connotative experience that suggests a wide range of drinks, the word will denote a less specific meaning.
Conversely to that narrowing of denotation is what happens when our experience of potential meaning expands. By the time you have umpteen connotations of tea ranging across the whole spectrum of ‘bits of plant and fruit extracts infused with hot water’ we then do a retrofit by labelling them ‘Indian tea’, ‘herb tea’ and so on. Yeah, we even have a special word for this process… ;)
This process of converting a general word into a specific trace element has a counterpart in the way we view other cultures, as Aorto explains in another thread. We know only a tiny bit and we make that tiny bit into the whole.
Aorto gave the example of "Ya mon" representing all of Jamaican culture*, as I recall. Tsuwm came up with a word she liked to describe this phenomenon: desublimation.
Hope u come back, Flatlander.
re Conversely to that narrowing of denotation is what happens when our experience of potential meaning expands. Yeah, we even have a special word for this process… ;)
Enjoyed your analysis, Maverick. But then you left me hanging.
What's the special word for this process - where the original essence or "denotation" expands into an entire range of products? Marketing?
All the leading consumer multi-nationals do it. Nike is the best example I can think of. Nike began with track shoes in 1962 [I just checked it out].
Nike and the American Body
Nike appears atop the cultural pyramid and has perched there longer than most companies could dream. Katz (1994) descries that "special Nike strain of the myriad intricacies of cool," whereby Nike has come to interject itself into the fabric of culture by defining what it means to be irreverent, athletic, and entirely 'with it.'
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am483_97/projects/hincker/nike.html
Maybe SWOOSH would be a good word for the phenomenon you are describing, Maverick.
* Here's what Aorto said [in "Is there a word for ...?" thread, Q&A]:
Here's an example. My spouse is from Jamaica. We all know the cliche, the 'Ya mon' which brings to mind Jamaicans with dreadlocks. Aside from the fact that it is mispronounced by everyone, the cultural meaning is lost.
Tsuwm came up with a word she liked to describe this phenomenon: desublimation
Tsuwmamaman.
Just to clarify the 8antecedent...
In reply to:
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Tsuwm came up with a word she liked to describe this phenomenon: desublimation
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Tsuwmamaman.
Just to clarify the 8antecedent...that's as may be; but what was the poor womoon to do when her precedent was the lady woom I was responding to my own self?
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that's one real obscure literary allusion back there, is what that is.
Croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh.
-joe (woo-woo-woo) friday
Goddess of Victory
Here's a photo of the Temple of Athena Nike:
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Temple_of_Athena_Nike.html
So, Nike is a twice-passported word.
Very clever, Wordwind. :)
Some Greek atheletes flew to glory in Athena Nikes last summer - which is fitting because Athena Nike has no wings in the Acropolis.
Large parts of the entry to the Acropolis are still standing. Just next to the entrance is the little Ionic temple of Athena Nike (Victorious Athena). It was built as a home for Athena during the construction of the Parthenon. The interesting thing is, this tiny temple took longer to build than the Parthenon itself!
Nike is the goddess of victory, and the Greeks broke her wings so that she would stay in Greece. Therefore, this statue of Nike here was wingless. Now, the statue is kept in the Museum of Louvre at Paris.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:_2pe6NnQvUsJ:album.alexfung.info/
album/med99/greece.htm+athena+nike+at+Olympics+in+Greece&hl=en
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