WORDS LIKE THIS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvGuEXVjvrk Go to 1:35 of this video. How long has the so-called word “schlumpy” existed? I can’t imagine it being in a standard English dictionary and yet you know what she means even if you have never heard the word before, right? Feeling sort of tired, but certainly hardly refreshed.
As it is, I have this film on DVD and I just had to look up this “word” in French and German by watching this scene again with subtitles in those languages (although it only offered me French ones in reality) and also dubbed in those languages (available in both French and German). In the French subtitles I saw it translated as “en vrac”; in the French audio I heard “éboursifflée”; in the German audio I heard “schlampig”.
Say what you will, but I always thought “en vrac” meant “in bulk”, but it can also mean “loose” – it’s actually hard to say whether that’s an accurate translation or not. Meanwhile, I couldn’t find “éboursifflée” in my French / English bilingual dictionary at all. As for “schlampig”, Google Translate offers translations which are actually not far off the mark at all. Still, it’s an adjective that made me think of “Schlampe”, which in English means, shall we say, a woman of ill repute.
Final bit: I’ve known my Dad say, “don’t faff around” and you may have guessed correctly that it means “don’t mess about” – just like when Inspector Grimm says “no fannying about” in The Thin Blue Line. “Schlumpy” is not the only word of this kind. What I want to say here is that is anyone familiar with a standard term of designation for such words? I would love to hear it!