Job Discussion Forums

[FGT]

"Sik" (Turkish) does not mean p.e.n.i.s. It means f.u.c.k. The Turkish language has plenty of other words for it but not that!
But, yes I know what you mean.

Various English words that we teach every day sound obscene to Turkish ears :
"pitch" as in football or "peach" as in fruit both sound to our students like b*stard.
"arm" or "um" sound like c*nt. Etc

It's difficult but it makes drilling fun!!!

Have you ever had a student called Ufuk or Kunt? Both are common names here. Personally, I could never call a daughter of mine Arzu because it makes me think of our zoo.

[yaramaz]

Actually, in my dictionary (Redhouse) sik is translated as p-e-n-i-s or d-i-c-k or c-o-c-k. Sikismek means to shag, basically. As well, the delightful term for f-off, siktir git , literally means p-e-n-i-s go. I also like calling people seftali.... or peach... or pi�! It takes them a while to catch on. Ha. Also, we call people we don't like mutfakkers... I've also had a number of students with names that make me reluctant to say them aloud... ha.

PS Please pardon my language! It's all in the name of academic research...

[Stephen Jones]

I regualary use all of them except for "hermeneutic", which I had to look up. I use heuristic all the time though. Indeed this thread has been a heuristic experience.

[dmb]

Yaramaz, I wouldn't trust Redhouse too much. If I remember correctly the old redhouse I had mixed up 'terrible' and 'terrific' when I first arrived in Turkey and I was trying to learn the language I told a local I thought Akcay(where I was living) was korkunc. "hey I'm really happy to be here because it's terrible"I couldn't work out his confusion for quite a few months.This was ten years ago so maybe they have corrected it since then.

[SueH]

I'm the same as Stephen Jones, although in spite of being at heart in favour of disestablishment I've never used anti..etc in normal conversation. I think my anti-virus package says it's heuristic, which probably means that as a rule it picks up new viruses, but not invariably....

I think that 50000 words is an overestimate - there was a recent BBC radio programme on the subject - and ISTR it was more in the region of 20/30 K even for educated people.

As for the necessity of having a large vocabulary - I think how you use what you have is important. I left Italy 36 years ago having lived there as a young ex-pat kid. Last year I started teaching beginners Italian (without ever studying it at high level myself) and at the end of term went out for a drink with the other two Italian teachers - a Swiss national and a visiting Italian student of English. Maybe the beers helped but the conversation was fast and fluid and in a mixture of Italian and English which melded into a seamless whole as the evening went on. If you have a strong foundation in what you do know I think you can quickly think of different ways of expressing your ideas, and you also effectively absorb the new vocabulary you find you need.

[Dave Kessel]

[FGT]

Any historians out there know the story of the siege of Masada - a flat topped (table shaped) mountain in what is now Israel, of the Jews by the Romans, as reported by Josephus?
In Turkish (a relatively recent arrival in this area) 'masada' means 'on the table'. Does the same suffix exist in Arabic/Aramaic?

[dmb]

'masada'could also mean 'at the table' or 'in the table.' So where was the siege?

[FGT]

The siege (by between 10,000 and 15,000 Roman soldiers) was around the base of the mountain upon which was built a citadel known as 'Masada'.

[Shonai Ben]

Is Masada the place where they finally committed suicide so they wouldn't be captured?The men killed their wives and children and then themselves?
Not sure.

[Roger]

You sent me off on a mystical journey to the so-called 'Holy Land" Eretz Yesreel, on a memory lane taking me back to my one year and a half of being a volunteer worker in a kibbutz.
We visited Masada on a six-day tour of the Negev and Sinai (then Israel-occupied).
Masada is near the Dead Sea, a majestic, colossal plateau that falls almost vertically down to the surrounding desert. It is easy to understand why the Jews elected this place as a last resort in a ROman-controlled empire, until their death (suicide) in 73 A.D.
The flat-topped mountain looks somewhat like a table. I forgot nearly all my Hebrew, but I would not be surprised to learn that the name translates as "Table Hill" or something - just as there is a Table Mountain near Cape Town.

[Minhang Oz]

Wanderlust: "What do you mean by the word "word"?"
Me: Buy a dictionary, boofhead.

[johnslat]

May I suggest Josephus, probably the best-known authority ( though his objectivity and accuracy are suspect ) on the seige:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/history/War/Classical/Rome/72-Masada-Josephus.htm

and a site that disputes Josephus' account:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/masada.html

Regards,
John