Joshua from Jacksonville, Florida, has fond memories of long dinners in Italy that left him with a sense of abbiocco, an Italian word for “that drowsy, full feeling after a satisfying meal.” The Dutch word uitbuiken means “to sit back and relax after dinner,” connoting the idea of comfortably pushing away from the table and perhaps loosening one’s belt. Joshua is also a fan of the Japanese word yugen, sometimes translated as “a feeling of profound and mysterious beauty.” For further reading about feelings in various languages, check out The Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith (Bookshop|Amazon) and Translating Happiness: A Cross-Cultural Lexicon of Well-Being by Tim Lomas (Bookshop|Amazon). This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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