4 ms·
English so inefficient when expressing human relationships.
by satya71 3y ago
English so inefficient when expressing human relationships.
- wizofaus 3y agoAnd very imprecise. Virtually nobody gets it right when trying to describe a relationship with an nth cousin m times removed. And recently I tried to work out a fairly basic relationship between myself and my son's step-sisters - they're not biologically related to me at all, or even by (current) marriage, but it seemed like there should be a term for it.
- noblood 3y agoTwo of my cousins were adopted out, found the family as adults, and immediately had a child together. That child is now an adult, and members of his generation ask, what do we call the guy, "unclecousin"?
- miki123211 3y agoLanguages like Polish are even worse, because you have to go in reverse, from the person described to yourself. It's the great great grandmother of the cousin of the uncle of the ex wife of your sister, not your sister's ex wife's uncle's great great grandmother.
- pndy 3y agoThe Old Polish had some pretty cool sounding terms for describing family relations that become forgotten, changed or dropped in favor of other words dziewierz - husband's brother sounds way more cooler than szwagier imo
- notpushkin 3y agoI think we still say that in Russian sometimes! (Although very, very rarely) https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8C https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1...
- smsm42 3y agoRussian has some neat words for in-law relationships, but I'd say vast majority of the population never uses it and has to hit the dictionary when they encounter it in the literature. Which IMHO is a pity.
- alexfoo 3y agoAh. Reverse Polish notation!
- renewiltord 3y agoI actually think the lack of specificity in this case is a win. And I'm no Anglosupremacist. After all, what good is a language that doesn't contain a which-eth question word everyone knows?