Glossary of my favorite words
Kafkaesque (Adj): unnecessary complicated and often frustrating experience that someone has to go through especially when dealing with bureaucratic process.
scholar come up with this word in describing Frans Kafka’s works that often time deals with or throwing shade on how complicated it is dealing with the government process. His famous novel The Trial begins with the Protagonist, Mr. Josef K, waking up one morning only to find out that he was arrested in which the nature of his crime nor the the reason for the arrest never reveal in the court trial.
Another one of his famous novel, metamorphosis, begin with the protagonist waking up one day and find out that his body had transformed into a giant insect and yet the first thing that comes into his mind was “ how am i going to work with this condition?”
Even In his short story Poseidon, which tells story of the mighty god Poseidon who has to sit all day in his throne doing paperworks that takes forever to complete, Kafka is throwing shade that even a god cannot escape the complicated nature of bureaucratic process.
Kinan (Adj): Indonesian words that synonym with right-handed or someone whose more dominant using the right parts of their body.
the word kinan isn’t really popular in Indonesia because i guess we directly assume a person is right-handed until it was reveal that the opposite is true. That is probably because it is common to be right-handed. However the word kidal which means left-handed is very popular because its is consider rare to be left-handed so people often talk about it.
I find it ironic that the word kinan isn’t commonly used when being right-handed is common and the word kidal is commonly used but being left-handed is uncommon.
Lunatic (Adj): the word is in many ways synonym to crazy.
What is interesting about the word lunatic which i guess i should have expected that it comes from the word luna, Latin word for the moon. the reason being because it was believed that the number of people losing their mind or go crazy is increased according to the phase of the moon.
Mileage on a hoe (n): the amount of works and bad things a prostitute can do before she loses her mind.
Mr. Chappelle told this story in one if his standup after the dead of George Floyd. In the stand-up he brought a book written by Iceberg Slim about pimping life. The book feature slang words related to pimping and in that glossary you can find this phrase.
To understand this bizarre phrase one need to know that Dave Chappelle walked away from a 50 million dollars contract from Comedy Central and disappear for 12 years at the peak of his career.
A good pimp can look at a woman he has never seen before and said “she is good for 500 fucks and more than that she will lose her mind” said Mr. Chappelle. Apparently a good pimp can see the limit of her prostitutes and subsequently knows when is the right time to throw them away before they are starting to create trouble for the pimp.
This concept is being done to you he continued. Why do you think most of you had to work from 9 to 5? because working from 9 to 6 can kill a bitch. What i’m trying to say is a “good” company should know when is the right time to throw you away before you are starting to create trouble for them. That is probably why Mr. Chappelle walked away from a 50 mil. dollars deal.
Nooner (n): Sexual intercourse that happen at noon.
The word especially special because we have exactly the same expression which is very popular at the early 2000s called “Bobo-bobo siang”. It can be translated roughly to “sleep at noon”.
Orwellian (Adj): Refers to the character of George Orwell’s works specifically the novel 1984.
The novel tells story about life in fictional country named Oceania. The government is authoritarian which means they control every aspect of people’s life. it goes even further that if the government believe that two plus two is five then you have to believe it. So anyone who believes otherwise will be subjected to prosecution and punishment. A concept which probably unimaginable happening in a democratic country like us. but wait there is a twist.
The word Orwellian refers to the use of doublespeak to show irony. For instance in that country the minister of truth function is to spread lies and hoax. The ministry of peace is the military. People are being tortured in the Minister of Love. These irony is used to show that language can be used to twist truth to lies.
The government even goes further by publishing a new dictionary called newspeak containing limited vocabulary. All words that are considered complex is abolished and cannot be used because they might trigger critical thinking among the societies.
Orwell wanted to warn us that language is so powerful that it can oppress you even if you don’t live in a country like North Korea. For instance “The land clearing will be used as public investment” can be heard spoken by the member of government these days while in reality it is the public that didn’t get any benefit from the investment.
Poontang (n): a slang for sexual intercourse
i was watching the show 8 out of 10 cats does countdown when John Richardson, one of the panelist, said the word “…that sweet poontang…” and because i like the sound of it, i rush to open online dictionary only to find out what it means.
Riolo (adv): A Buginese words means (1)In front, (2) in the past
Imonri (adv):A Buginese words means (1)Behind, (3) in the future
I think from the definition you can see how unique these words are. These words shows opposite nuance and meaning when they are used in different context.
When talking about location or position the word riolo means something is located in front of other thing for example in the phrase riolo bola which means in front of the house. However when talking about time riolo means in the past which has a nuance of something is behind us. take a look at the example of the phrase mabiccu mo pi riolo which means he/she was very small in the past.
Vice versa, when talking about location imonri means behind and when talking about time it means in the future.
