21 ms·

Good catch! I didn't know about this, I'll update the footnote. Anecdotally everyone I know was very surprised by KEFIR the other day.

tantalor 1y ago
Because it's not a f*ckin' English word!
- ghaff 1y ago
  Yet, it's on bottles that are sold in the grocery store. Yes, it's not really a common word as I commented at the time, but it's not really a word that I'd consider a proper noun or otherwise not legitimate.
- seany 1y ago
  You can say fuck on the Internet. It's fine
- shkkmo 1y ago
  Is "salsa" an english word? In english, "salsa" means a spicy dip made from peppers and other vegetables. In spanish, "salsa" just mean a sauce. Loan words are a well estabished mechanism by which words enter a language from another langues. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword Loanwords spread from their point of adoption into the wider language and can shift from the original meaning, just like other words. "Kefir" has definitions in every major dictionary and is often used in contexts where all the other words are also english. That makes it pretty conclusively an English word.
  - tantalor 1y ago
    Just because a word is "in the dictionary" doesn't make it English. For example, we can all agree "schadenfreude" is not an English word, but it's in the dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude There is no English word for "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune". Yes, we can borrow from German; that doesn't make it suddenly become English.
    - shkkmo 1y ago
      > For example, we can all agree "schadenfreude" is not an English word, but it's in the dictionary. I don't agree. > Yes, we can borrow from German; that doesn't make it suddenly become English. It doesn't suddenly become English. It happens gradually as more English speakers encounter the word and start using the word. Dictionaries start adding the word as usage becomes widespread. If a borrowed word is frequently used in an English context by English speakers and is understood by English speakers and that is widespread enoythat it is listed in English dictionaries...it is pretty safe to say that the word is part of the English language. While I do speak German, I learned the English word "schadenfruede" well before I started studying any German. Similarly, I don't speak any Russian but I know what "kefir" means. I didn't learn it from a Russian, I learned it from other English speakers in the course of speaking English about 20 years ago. In fact, I didn't even know that word originally came from Russian until very recently. Part of why English is so hard to learn for non-native speakers is because it is full of loan words from lots if languages. Many of them you probably don't even realize originally came from other languages.
- jibal 1y ago
  So what is "kefir" in English?
  - tantalor 1y ago
    English doesn't have a word for that, hence the loanword.
    - jibal 1y ago
      My question was rhetorical. The point is that the English word for "kefir" is "kefir". So English does have a word for that. shkkmo stated the situation well and nothing you wrote in response refuted anything they said. You say "Just because a word is "in the dictionary" doesn't make it English" but that's not true, as they explained. Virtually the entirety of the English language is "loaned" from somewhere. From the Merriam-Webster definition of schadenfreude: "In English, the word was used mostly by academics until the early 1990s, when it was introduced to more general audiences via pop culture." You say "that doesn't make it suddenly become English" -- indeed, it wasn't sudden. The word did not always appear in English language dictionaries. It was added when it became recognized as having been incorporated into English--lexicographers are conservative and lag behind actual usage. Anyway, I'm not going to recreate the entire prescriptive/descriptive debate in linguistics here, especially since "kefir" and "schadenfreude" are English words on both grounds. Enough said.

tantalor 1y ago

Because it's not a f*ckin' English word!

ghaff 1y ago
Yet, it's on bottles that are sold in the grocery store. Yes, it's not really a common word as I commented at the time, but it's not really a word that I'd consider a proper noun or otherwise not legitimate.
seany 1y ago
You can say fuck on the Internet. It's fine
shkkmo 1y ago
Is "salsa" an english word? In english, "salsa" means a spicy dip made from peppers and other vegetables. In spanish, "salsa" just mean a sauce. Loan words are a well estabished mechanism by which words enter a language from another langues. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword Loanwords spread from their point of adoption into the wider language and can shift from the original meaning, just like other words. "Kefir" has definitions in every major dictionary and is often used in contexts where all the other words are also english. That makes it pretty conclusively an English word.
- tantalor 1y ago
  Just because a word is "in the dictionary" doesn't make it English. For example, we can all agree "schadenfreude" is not an English word, but it's in the dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude There is no English word for "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune". Yes, we can borrow from German; that doesn't make it suddenly become English.
  - shkkmo 1y ago
    > For example, we can all agree "schadenfreude" is not an English word, but it's in the dictionary. I don't agree. > Yes, we can borrow from German; that doesn't make it suddenly become English. It doesn't suddenly become English. It happens gradually as more English speakers encounter the word and start using the word. Dictionaries start adding the word as usage becomes widespread. If a borrowed word is frequently used in an English context by English speakers and is understood by English speakers and that is widespread enoythat it is listed in English dictionaries...it is pretty safe to say that the word is part of the English language. While I do speak German, I learned the English word "schadenfruede" well before I started studying any German. Similarly, I don't speak any Russian but I know what "kefir" means. I didn't learn it from a Russian, I learned it from other English speakers in the course of speaking English about 20 years ago. In fact, I didn't even know that word originally came from Russian until very recently. Part of why English is so hard to learn for non-native speakers is because it is full of loan words from lots if languages. Many of them you probably don't even realize originally came from other languages.
jibal 1y ago
So what is "kefir" in English?
- tantalor 1y ago
  English doesn't have a word for that, hence the loanword.
  - jibal 1y ago
    My question was rhetorical. The point is that the English word for "kefir" is "kefir". So English does have a word for that. shkkmo stated the situation well and nothing you wrote in response refuted anything they said. You say "Just because a word is "in the dictionary" doesn't make it English" but that's not true, as they explained. Virtually the entirety of the English language is "loaned" from somewhere. From the Merriam-Webster definition of schadenfreude: "In English, the word was used mostly by academics until the early 1990s, when it was introduced to more general audiences via pop culture." You say "that doesn't make it suddenly become English" -- indeed, it wasn't sudden. The word did not always appear in English language dictionaries. It was added when it became recognized as having been incorporated into English--lexicographers are conservative and lag behind actual usage. Anyway, I'm not going to recreate the entire prescriptive/descriptive debate in linguistics here, especially since "kefir" and "schadenfreude" are English words on both grounds. Enough said.