........................................................................................ - a weBlog by Snowy and me.

Tuesday, 20 August 2024

Overused Words In Different Languages

If 'free' and 'freedom' are the most overused words
in American English, or at least in US Politics,
then what are their equivalents in other tongues? 

'Il faut', 'it must' is the phrase that the French turn to
more than they need to, where the list of what must be done,
the words that follow Il faut is so long it is too long for here.

'Literally' gets overused and misused in many tongues,
though Germans side-step the trend. Many words and phrases
in German can be translated as 'literally', but with words
such as 'wortwortlich' or 'im wahrsten Sinne des wortes',
the Germans restrain themselves in how they use them.

'Saudade' in Portugese is easily misused,
because it is about feeling absence, of a person,
object, or idea. Saudade does not refer to actions,
it is not a verb. It refers to what we can't control.
Brazilians and Portugese who want to be correct
about the commonplace say
 'sentir falta' for 'missing something'.
There is nothing missing in their precision with language.

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