Favorite Words or Phrases

[dojibear]

I thought it was from an Algonquian word for 'big shot.'

It probably was. But that part was not explained to me when I was a kid.

 

[RM1(SS)]

I like the English word "mugwump". It means a person who can't decide which side they are on. We also say they are "on the fence", because they are not in THIS yard or THAT yard. They are in-between. When I was a kid, the word was explained to me as someone (a cat, perhaps?), sitting on fence with his MUG (face) on one side and his WUMP on the other side.

Richard Armour said they were called "mugwumps" because they sat on the fence with their mugs on one side and their wumps on the other.

 

[Encolpius]

Most languages use an ugly word for the hot drink made by pouring boiling water onto the dried leaves an evergreen shrub native to China, India and other East Asian countries, but in Polish it is herbata - herbatka. ❤️❤️❤️

 

[Welsh_Sion]

Agree as to 'herbata', enco, but which word were you thinking of in the first part of your sentence: chai (and its variants) or tea (and its variants)?

And in Cockney you have 'Rosie/Ros(e)y' [Lee] = tea.

 

[dojibear]

Most languages use an ugly word for the hot drink made by pouring boiling water onto the dried leaves...

...of almost anything. In US stores it is called "herbal tea". That means "contains no actual tea".

And that term is ugly, at least to me.

 

[Encolpius]

Agree as to 'herbata', enco, but which word were you thinking of in the first part of your sentence: chai (and its variants) or tea (and its variants)?

And in Cockney you have 'Rosie/Ros(e)y' [Lee] = tea.

Both chai & tea.