Howard Rheingold

Examples taken from more than forty different languages demonstrate the ability of other languages to provide words for objects or thoughts that English lacks

A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases

They Have a Word for it

Laura Mauler

Pretty good overall. Some of the featured words have actually entered mainstream English usage (e.g. "wabi-sabi", "mantra", "zeitgeist", and "schadenfreude") in the ~30 years since this book was written, and it's fun to think that not so long ago they were foreign and novel. Will any of the other words in the book become mainstream in the next ~30 years? I, for one, will be doing my best to use and spread these words: "esprit de l'escalier", the clever remark that come to mind when it is too late to utter it; "fusto", a man who like to flex his muscles and dress provocatively"; "yugen", an awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words"; and "schlimmbesserung", a so-called improvement that makes things worse.

Some of the featured words/phrases don't seem like they are expressing anything that we don't already have a word or phrase for in English (e.g. "bustarella", a cash bribe), and other words/phrases don't seem like they would ever, EVER, be needed in American life (e.g. "nadi", to temporarily inhabit another dimension). That isn't a big deal, it was still nice to read through them, but I definitely got the feeling that some of this was filler to meet a particular page count.

They Have a Word for it A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases

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