Tuesday, February 14, 2006

More About That Article on Kissing

That New York Times piece on kissing also asserts:

The German language has words for 30 different kinds of kisses, including nachküssen, which is defined as a kiss "making up for kisses that have been omitted."

I haven’t looked into this, but it's worth noting that linguists have debunked similar claims about other languages (like Eskimos having X number of words for “snow” and the assertion that the Irish lack a word for “sex”). So take such things with grain of salt.

Speaking of salt, one more tidbit from the NYT article:

(The Germans are also said to have coined the inexplicable phrase "A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt.")

All I can say is de gustibus non est disputandum. But I love the idea of a word that means “making up for kisses that have been omitted,” and plan to start using it immediately.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

NYT article: "(The Germans are also said to have coined the inexplicable phrase 'A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt.')"

Martha: "All I can say is de gustibus non est disputandum."
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If you say so, but one can't assume there is a chin involved with this beard.

4:11 PM  

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