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From The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way
schadenfreude (taking delight in the misfortune of others (German)
sgiomlaireachd - the habit of dropping in at mealtimes (Highland Scottish)
auf - (German) can mean - "on", "in", "upon", "at", "toward", "for", "to", and "upward".
arigato (japanese) - "thanks" makotoni go shinsetsu de gozaimasu (Japanese) - "what you have done or proposed to do is a truly and genuinely kind and generous deed"
German is full of jaw-crunching words like Wirtschaftstreuhandgesellschaft (business trust company), Bundesbahnangestelltenwitwe (a widow of a federal railway employee), and Kriegsgefangenenentschädigungsgesetz (a law pertaining to war preparations).
But perhaps the single most notable characteristic of English - for better and worse - is its deceptive complexity. Nothing in English is ever quite what it seems. Take the simple word what. ... It takes the Oxford English Dictionary five pages and almost 15,000 words to manage the task.
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