If an ethnographer says that in the language of a Central African people the word ‘ango’ means ‘dog’, he would be entirely correct, but he has only to a very limited degree thereby conveyed the meaning of ‘ango’, for what it means to the natives who use the word is very different to what ‘dog’ means to an Englishman. The significance dogs have for them—they hunt with them, they eat them, and so on—is not the significance they have for us.
— Evans Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion, page 10
But speaking a language fluently is very different from understanding it […] native and missionary are using the same words but the connotations are different, they carry different loads of meaning.
— Evans Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religions, page 7.
Hitam mata itu mana boleh bercerai dengan putihnya.
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Arti: “orang yg sedang bercinta tidak mudah dipisahkan.”
Oke… artinya itu agak-agak bisa berarti harafiah.
PS: Mulai hari ini saya akan gunakan Tumblr ini untuk dokumentasikan idiom-idiom (baik bahasa Indo maupun Inggris) yang saya anggap menarik. :) Tetu beserta komentar saya. :P
Kalo berbahasa yang konsisten! Bahasa itu bukan buat keren-kerenan!
— Lemon S. Sile (a.k.a. Annas Azis), 2007. Via blog deathlock.
Kita sudah punya istilah “berlebih-lebihan”, “keadaan”, atau “dampak”. Nggak perlu diterjemahin lagi jadi “eksagerasi”, “sirkumtansi”, atau “impak”.
— Self-quoted. I mean, “impak”? Damn, is that even a word?
