You see it quite often when someone will say ‘there’s a word for that…there’s no direct translation but it’s loosely like…’ then proceeds to give it a translation.
I saw one recently of kummerspeck, I think the commenter said it was ‘food you eat when you’re sad’ or ‘grief bacon’.
I would also like to preemptively apologise for my ignorance.
In: 37
It means there isn’t a short or succinct way to translate a given term that has the same, or at least very similar meaning. Not that its completely impossible for someone to explain what the term means using English words
So for example you mentioned kummerspeck. Kummer means grief or sorrow in German. and speck means either bacon or just fat more generally in German.
So kummerspek literally means “grief bacon” as you said or “grief fat”. But what it really means is “the weight people tend to gain when they overeat because they are sad” in English we just…don’t have a *word* for that or at least not a word that’s widespread enough that most people would understand it. (I’m sure there’s a medical term for it)
Latest Answers