this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
43 points (95.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

32493 readers
1726 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Original question by @Justathroughdaway@lemmy.world

I like to lean about words from around the world and use them in my speech. I have a particular love for British words. I just love words like spiv, nod, wasteman, barmy, slapper, bruv, shafted, nonce, junkie, bint, smackhead, slag, breve, chav, squiffy, slaphead, dosh, shafted

top 47 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] WindyRebel@lemmy.world 1 points 52 minutes ago* (last edited 40 minutes ago)

Gesundheit

Kindergarten

Peckish

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

j'accuse and pamplemousse are pretty good and fun to say

[–] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago

De quoi vous accusez les pamplemousses, justement?

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago

I use things like "excusé moi" for when I burp/belch and when alone and thinking out loud to myself will slip on random words I know from other languages if I end up on a random tangent. Otherwise, I tend not to.

[–] MSids@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

I am from the US and have been referring to the dumb people around me as donuts recently. Still not exactly sure what this means to people in the UK, but it seems nicer than the words I was using previously.

[–] ludrol@bookwyr.me 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] CptInsane0@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Okaerinasai

[–] CptInsane0@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago
[–] aramis87@fedia.io 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I speak English. And, as James Nicoll said,

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

I speak some Spanish and some Dutch, but I don't know if I borrow many words from them that aren't "normal" borrow-words.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Dutch is also great at mugging others for words.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Pure English should not use Latin Alphabet.

It's back to celtic writing.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

That's a weird take when it's not a Celtic language. It's Germanic (with heavy Romantic old French influence), so you should really be talking about runes or something.

Latin letters are a terrible fit, though, you're absolutely right about that. It gives you 4 vowels to work with and my spoken dialect has 17.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

i used to import words from other countries before tariffs kicked in

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 22 hours ago

Petrol > gas. Using the same word for gasoline and natural gas gets confusing as hell in any number of conversations.

[–] vfsh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 22 hours ago

From the States, I say Maccas instead of McDonald's, and things like bellend and wanker occasionally. It's fun picking up words and stuff from other cultures

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago
[–] grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

"Chingadera" and a smattering of other Spanish words/slang; "świnia", which means pig in Polish, because my Grandma says it, and "haiyaaaaaa", said with a long sigh, thanks Uncle Roger.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

We use "no bueno" quite a bit in our house. Not sure how it crept in but I like it.

[–] awaysaway@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I say Ciao rather often while living in an english speaking country. Rethinking this after getting roasted for this in the new show Stick. Never thought of it as being anything other than natural, having also spent time living in a few spanish speaking countries. Don't want to come across any type of way so thinking about rolling back my usage.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 4 points 1 day ago

All the time.

There is no such thing as a (modern) language that is not assembled from borrowing from other languages. So even speaking a single language, one may already be 'borrowing' from quite a few more. Add to that many of us will speak at least two languages (native + English), or more.

So yeah, like many, I borrow words and expressions from any of the languages I speak, even more so with those words and expressions I have a sweet spot for ;)

[–] kcweller@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm Dutch, but often speak English as I'm fluent in it, so it sometimes mixes. Other words I often use are

  • some German, Spanish and French phrases (secondary languages),
  • various toasts, like lechajim, skål, depending on the people I'm with,
  • some Arabic like shukran, habibi,
  • Surinamese slang (kaolo is a fun one)
[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

We often toast in the language of the liquid we're drinking

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

lechajim

I've never seen that spelling before. Usually I see 'L'chiam'

[–] kcweller@feddit.nl 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Since it's from modern "Hebrew" it doesn't really matter how you spell it since Hebrew is an abjat script

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 points 3 hours ago

Along similar lines, I once saw a food review that talked about Peking duck and Beijing, China.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Surinamese slang (kaolo is a fun one)

I love people using it as a synonym for "very", when in fact means "shit hole".

[–] kcweller@feddit.nl 1 points 7 hours ago

That's the idea of slang

[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago
[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago
[–] cloudless@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago

Bone apple tea.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 1 day ago

Plenty of borrowed words from other languages that don't have an equal word in English. Shadenfruede. Je ne sai quoi. Cologne. Et cetera (literally).

[–] astrsk@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

All the time! I say maccas for McDonalds.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

it's better than "MickyDs" or whatever the americans say 🤭

[–] klemptor@startrek.website 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I saw someone in a large group chat I'm in use it just the other day, but I have no idea how popular it actually is in the States.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

I was thinking that I don't but then I realised, I say Hallo all the time instead of hola.

[–] makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I tend to use kanpai as my toast and cheers in place of thanks as an American

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

Depends on the person. My spouse and I, along with 5 or 6 friends, use a variety of key words from a couple shared languages to talk about things when we don't want other to understand. Mostly haggling or talking about sales stuff to discuss if we like something or think it's too expensive when a human is hovering right there. So I can give body language of disappointment while saying "this is great."

Words from different countries? That's cute. Kawaii, even.

I prefer the word biscuit, even as an American. I don't like saying the word "cracker" because that sounds like its easily misunderstood as an insult to rural white people.

[–] TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

I've started learning Sinhala and sometimes I'll swap between English and the few Sinhala words I know when I'm talking with my girlfriend

[–] Kennystillalive@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

As a non native english speaker I use quite a lot of Enhlish words in my language as well as some French words here and there.

[–] Quokka@quokk.au 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I’ve picked up some words from colleagues, so I often say yalla yalla or acha.

Sometimes American words can be fun like “yo man wassup”.

[–] Gieselbrecht@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Altijd. Ich aime this mucho.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 1 points 1 day ago

I speak English natively and Spanish as a second language but most people I talk to speak English as a second language.

When I go back to my hometown I have a pretty noticeable accent and I tend to use a smaller vocabulary.

[–] darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nej, jag vägrar att använda utländska ord.

[–] Cuberoot@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 21 hours ago