Product Description

Did you know that people in Indonesia have a word that means 'to take off your clothes in order to dance'? Or how many words the Albanians have for eyebrows and moustaches? Or the Dutch word for skimming stones is plimpplamppletteren? Drawing on the collective wisdom of over 154 languages, this intriguing book is arranged by theme so you can compare attitudes all over the world to such subjects as food, the human body and the battle of the sexes. Here you can find not only those words for which there is no direct counterpart in English (such as the Japanese age-otori which means looking less attractive after a haircut), but also a frank discussion of exactly how many 'Eskimo' terms there are for snow, and a vast array of information exploring the wonderful and often downright strange world of words. Oh, and tingo means 'to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by asking to borrow them'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86351 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-29
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Stephen Fry
A book no well-stocked bookshelf, cistern-top or handbag should be without.

The Economist, 24 September 2005
'The Meaning of Tingo' may well prove to be the must-have British stocking-filler for 2005

The Times, 22 September 2005
...compulsively perusable

Customer Reviews

An Empty Shell
'The Meaning of Tingo' is supposedly an extensive list of extraordinary phrases used in other languages and their meaning. It has an exciting premise, promising blurb, and enticing introduction. But from the very start it is a disappointment.

For a start de Boinod includes all the really humorous examples in his introduction leaving little else of real substance for the rest of the book. What it becomes is a book of translations from English words alongside their direct translations, which themselves are mostly mundane and normal. For example the first page shows a long list of different words meaning hello, which are interesting at first but quickly become tedious.

Furthermore there is no guide to how to pronounce the words, which wouldn't have been hard to include with proper research. This makes it impossible to understand how they are spoken.

There are not many sketches like the front cover and they are rarely humorous, as well as being done by a different artist. The book gets a excellent review from the great Stephen Fry but bearing in mind that he is the presenter of QI, the programme for which de Boinod is a researcher, this should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Occasionally there are truly interesting and quirky examples (such as the local name for Bangkok - the longest place name in the world), and these just about save it from a one star review. Ultimately 'The meaning of Tingo' strikes the reader as a good idea which didn't have the material to create a satisfactory book.

It does what it says on the label
A wonderfully light and uplifting read. Great for the loo, waiting rooms or sharing with a friend over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. The author has found some wonderfully obscure and diversely interesting examples of lingual communication, which often embarress the native speakers who deny the existance of these words - just because you haven't heard them doesn't mean they have not been heard before. The origins and roots of the English language would not be recognised by modern English speakers, even today some of my English friends admit to needing an interpreter when they travel to Scotland and Italian friends of mine from the Mountain regions of Italy do not understand a word of my Roman Uncle's Italian and speak with him in French or English, neither deny the authenticity of the other. I love this book. It broadens the vocabulary and the mind.

Factually Deficient
Based on the fact that most expressions from my own language, German, were either very rare or completely new to me, and often inexplicably misspelled, I suspect similar problems in the entries for other languages. After all, the German entries suggest that the author is either careless, or inept, or simply misinformed. And why should he be so only when it comes to one language? In any case, should you want a book that gives you expressions actually used in other countries, this is probably not it.