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Terms of Endearment

de Disputulo, 2010-novembro-22

Mesaĝoj: 17

Lingvo: English

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-06 07:37:09

Considering "(My) Dear Mr. Smith" without the "Mr. Smith" sounds a bit suss, "kara" doesn't sound so bad lango.gif.

"Mia kara (Ĝorĝo/Frederiko/Tomatulo)" (in full) sounds quite formal though.

Without the name it can sound, cute, suss or plain patronising. I prefer the last >ridego.gif

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-06 21:15:50

I have no idea what you mean by "suss". Surely you are not using "suss" with the British slang meaning, so this must be some Aussie slang with a different meaning?

I don't know anyone who writes "My dear Mr. Smith"; it's just "Dear Mr. Smith, I was very glad to get your letter yesterday" blah blah blah.

Maybe in Australia people sometimes include "My"? I haven't seen it here. Not in modern times, anyway.

Disputulo (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-06 21:42:00

I think knanjo is an interesting one, I've not seen it before. It definitely loses something in translation to English. "Girl" lacks the quality of endearment, "Girlie" incorporates a (possibly insulting) diminuative, and "baby/dear/etc." are also quite a bit off the mark.

See, this is the reason I asked. I could have put together karulino, etc. on my own (and have), but I was curious what people use outside this run-of-the-mill stuff. Especially the ones that just don't translate.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-07 01:50:15

There are a goodly number of "Esperanto relationships" but compared to a national language, there are very few. Most Esperanto speakers never have the opportunity to use words like this, so I think there isn't very much innovation.

The innovation, in my experience, mainly comes with inside jokes or expressions used only by the couple. It's something I make a point of asking when I meet another Esperanto-speaking couple, if they have any special idioms they use in the private language they speak. Nearly always the answer is yes, and nearly always it only makes sense if you speak both Esperanto and some other language.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-07 10:27:43

erinja:I have no idea what you mean by "suss". Surely you are not using "suss" with the British slang meaning, so this must be some Aussie slang with a different meaning?

I don't know anyone who writes "My dear Mr. Smith"; it's just "Dear Mr. Smith, I was very glad to get your letter yesterday" blah blah blah.

Maybe in Australia people sometimes include "My"? I haven't seen it here. Not in modern times, anyway.
Hello no, no one in Australia does that, let alone letter writing rido.gif (well, could be an overstatement).

But it's definitely not common in modern times, but I swear I still hear it these days, either romantically, intentionally formally (e.g. in the archaic sense, if someone's writing a narrative set in the 1500's or something ancient). That said, I always here the term of address "my dear" as patronising.

RE Suss, here seems to indicate that it is used in the UK as well, but regardless, it's short for "suspect" or "strange" or "weird" etc. I thought it was more common than just a commonwealth thing, my bad.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-07 15:17:36

Re: that Wikipedia page on "suss", meaning number two is the only one I was familiar with (to suss something out = to investigate, to figure something out)

Zefo96 (Montri la profilon) 2014-julio-01 19:46:52

Hello, I'm new to Lernu and to Esperanto. I'm not sure whether or not it's frowned upon to bring back threads from so long ago, but since this was here, I didn't see the point in starting a new one. I apologize if this goes against decorum.

In using an affectionate name for another person where the root of the name is an inanimate object, can you still use the "-njo" and "-cxjo" suffixes?

My question is probably best explained with an example...

My Spanish isn't great, but I understand the word "cielito" to refer to a little piece of heaven literally, while meaning something closer to "darling" or "sweetheart". If you were to try to translate this expression to Esperanto, would you say "cxieleto" or "cxienjo"/"cxiecxjo"? Even if "cxieleto" would be a more accurate translation, would it be grammatically incorrect to say "cxienjo"/"cxiecxjo"?

My question, of course, applies to other terms as well: Could you say "kukunjo"/"kukucxjo" ( from "kukurbo" ) or "mienjo"/"miecxjo" ( from "mielo" )?

Thanks.

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