आज का शब्द / آج كا شبد / ਅੱਜ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਬਦ

[muckefuck]

गांड़ / گانڙ gaaMR "arse, buttocks" (< Sanskrit गण्डः gaNDah "cheek"; cf. Panjabi ਗੰਡ gaND "idem.")

This is a vulgarity used liberally in the modern Mumbai crime novel I'm reading, so I was more than a little surprised to find not only it in Platts but also a variety of idioms incorporating it. For instance, the worrying गांड़ फटना gaaMR phaaRnaa (lit. "arse tearing") "get into a funk, ge frightened, come under pressure" and the puzzling गांड़-गलत gaaMR galat (lit. "arse-error") "senseless, stupefied". Of course, more literal expressions were there as well, e.g. गांड़मराओ gaaMR-maraao (lit. "arse-strikee") "catamite". (As I told monshu, best not to think too deeply about what Victorian Englishmen would need such vocabulary for.)

More recent idioms incorporating the word include गांड़ मत्ती gaaMR mastee (lit. "arse intoxication") which seems to mean something along the lines of "screwing around" and गांड़ चौड़ी करके घूमना gasaMR chauRee karke ghoomnaa (a vulgar twist on लम्बी चौड़ी हांकना lambee chauRee haMkaa "boast"). But by far the most common derivative in modern use seems to be गांडू gaaNDoo [note the lack of lenition] which originally meant "sodomite" and is now a general term of a abuse, particularly for a weak or timorous man.

Strangely, the word गांड़ isn't in Shabdkosh, but a term of similar meaning is गुदा / گدا / ਗੁਦਾ gudaa "anus" which appears in such phrases as गुदा द्वार / ਗੁਦਾ-ਦੁਆਰ gudaa dwaar "arsehole" (द्वार dwaar "door, entryway") and गुदा मैथुन gudaa maithun "anal sex".

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"Better" how?

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

well, I've raised this a few times in different groups, usually over a drink, and I've always met a consensus - people either sympathized (saying variations on "it's like the people have been stood there, like mannequins") or goggled (if they haven't come across the usage). Sadly I lack the resources to do a proper survey. It seems to me, though, that "no standing" would avoid any ambiguity.

On your activity index, I'd say that while intransitive "stand" isn't very active, transitive "stand" is more so. "Sit," "crouch" and "lie" seem like obvious companions on the activity index. "Sleep" strikes me as a very strange case. How about "drift?"

I guess I never questioned "devotee" because I imagined some implicit agent doing the devoting (and now I'm wondering how you describe the person who devotes an offering). "Retiree" still brings me up short because the sample sentence for retire that comes up in my brain is "I've retired," or "shall we retire?" Although I've never thought about it before, I now see that "he's retired" is ambiguous: he has or he is?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I tried some of those, with mixed results. "Sitter" is short for "babysitter" (typically a very active occupation!) and "sittee" just sounds to me like a mispronunciation of "settee". *"Liee" is just terrible; "lier" invites confusion with "liar" except in compounds like "outlier". "Croucher" and "crouchee" both work IMD, the first with a more active implication (i.e. I'd be more likely to use it for someone waiting in ambush). "Drifter" is established in the language, but with a metaphorical meaning; I'd be apt to use "driftee" for someone literally adrift in the sea.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about whether this is just me resisting American English again, after I thought I'd reached acceptance, but I still think "no standing" is better, because, like "no smoking," "no spitting" or "give up this seat to an elderly or disabled person," it directly addresses the passenger with a command, while "no standees" is presumably short for "there should be no standees riding on this bus," a normative comment about the bus, and therefore rather indirect. Also, standees is less likely to be ina foreigner's phrasebook.