5 Signs that Wit and Whimsy Come in Many Languages

Where there’s a word, there’s a way lovers of language will have some fun with it. Idioms, puns, and culturally unique expressions are a part of languages around the globe. And, in this latest collection of OIC’s “Greatest Hits,” our bloggers display their brand of wordplay wizardry with astute observations and forays into that witty world of words.

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5 Signs that Wit and Whimsy Come in Many Languages<\/h2>\n

Where there’s a word, there’s a way lovers of language will have some fun with it. Idioms, puns, and culturally unique expressions are a part of languages around the globe.\u00a0And, in this latest collection of OIC’s “Greatest Hits,” our bloggers display their brand of wordplay wizardry with astute observations and forays into that witty world of words.<\/p>\n

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1. A Taste of Italian Wordplay<\/a><\/h2>\n

Joyce McGreevy finds Italian wordplay to be every bit as cool as gelato and slick as salami, without the calories! So she served up a feast of food idioms that are the spices in everyday Italian conversation.<\/p>\n

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2. The Lucky Language of Fortune Cookies<\/a><\/h2>\n

Meredith Mullins cracks the code with a look at how fortune cookies offer us inspiration through wise or witty proverbs and sayings that bring a little happiness at the end of a Chinese meal.<\/p>\n

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3. An Idiom Abroad<\/a><\/h2>\n

A visit to Scotland for a textile exhibition left pun-pundit Joyce McGreevy convinced that some of the best-dressed clothing idioms are fashioned after textiles. In this pocketful of wordplay, fun and fashion go together like hand in glove.<\/p>\n

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4. 10 Words to Borrow from Different Cultures<\/a><\/h2>\n

Better than being lost in translation, Janine Boylan makes the case that these ten words from different cultures that don’t translate directly into English should be added the our lexicon as-is.<\/p>\n

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5. A Game of French Wordplay: Les Bon Mots<\/a><\/h2>\n

French living taught Meredith Mullins about baguettetiquette,\u00a0<\/em>the cultural do’s and taboos surrounding baguettes. Her love of language and\u00a0wordplay inspired her to invent more French phrases that take you inside French culture.<\/p>\n

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Wild about wordplay? Check out our Blog Topics & Archive<\/a> section for more great language and wordplay posts.<\/p>\n

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Photo credits: chalkboard sign, Matwor29<\/a>\/Pixabay; Italian deli, Mary Bettini Blank<\/a>\/Pixabay; fortune cookie,\u00a0Brandx Pictures\/Stockbyte; glove, Joyce McGreevy; two men with speech balloons, Thinkstock; woman with baguette, Meredith Mullins.<\/i><\/h5>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":40365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,95,227],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-language","category-wordplay-language","category-worldwide-mappoints"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40364"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40379,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40364\/revisions\/40379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}