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"Taxi" is universally understood, in my experience. (TFI calls it a "runner up" candidate.) "Kaput" is another.
by nonfamous 3y ago
"Taxi" is universally understood, in my experience. (TFI calls it a "runner up" candidate.)
"Kaput" is another.
- lopis 3y agoHow is kaput universal? That's just a German word that some people might know, but most won't.
- OJFord 3y agoIt's at least as commonly used in English as say Yiddish words like klutz and schmuck.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoMy dictionary suggests that the noun 'Schmuck' in modern German comes from the Low German adjective 'smuk' meaning beautiful; I can't even find it in an exclusively Yiddish dictionary however.
- OJFord 3y agoOh sorry, I thought they were, but regardless I think kaput is used (in English) at least as much. Br vs Am maybe.
- lopis 3y agoYou'll be surprised to know that English is.. Not a universal language.
- OJFord 3y agoNo I won't, मैं हिंदी सीख रहा हूं, what's your point anyway? You realise I was responding to English speakers claiming a non-English word wasn't used/heard of in English with my own claim that it is?
- nonfamous 3y agoI have no idea, but pointing to some non-working thing and saying "kaput" gets action in any language. It was a tip I picked up back in the backpacking days, and it does seem to work.
- lopis 3y agoI accept your anecdote but it's still hardly a universal word. In how many languages did you try this?
- felix318 3y agoTaxi, bar, hotel, restaurant, are very common. Maybe because of tourism? I have no idea what “kaput” means…
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago> I have no idea what “kaput” means… "kaputt" is a rather colloquial German word for "broken". My stance as a native German speaker: don't use it in written German, and avoid it in spoken German, too, since you will appear somewhat uneducated (remark: in spoken German, you typically use a more formal language register than in spoken English).
- gerdesj 3y ago"kaput" Possibly either "broken" (German) or perhaps "head" (Latin). Kaput is also an English borrow word from German. I've thrown in kaput/capit(a) for a laugh!
- mcswell 3y agoThere are lots of languages in the world that don't have any word for taxi, because they don't have taxis. The same is true for many of the other words talked about here or in the article. Of course if you want to say "Of the languages that have a word for X, then is the word more or less the same?", then "taxi" might count. It's even the same in German, a language that intentionally chose words that were not cognates: Fernseher for TV, Fernsprecher for telephone, Handy for cell phone.
- dyingkneepad 3y agoI had to use a translator to find out what 'kaput' means.
- e-khadem 3y agoIn Persian, "Kaput" is the word for car hood.
- bafe 3y agoAs I learned from my partner, Persian is rich in French loanwords, especially for things that were introduced at the time where French had the same status of English today. Kaput is just the Persian spelling of the French "Capote"
- Ekaros 3y agoIsn't taxi being replaced by ride-sharing or ride-hailing?