S is for Schadenfreude, which, let's be honest, is the best borrow word that we use in English. The word is, of course, from German and literally means 'harm joy', and defines the state of pleasure at someone else's pain, discomfort or humiliation. It's so interesting because it describes something that human beings experience almost involuntarily. You hear something on the news, some despicable person has got their comeuppance (and that's another of my favourite words) and you get a lovely little burst of schadenfreude.
R is for Robot, surprisingly from the Czech, a word meaning 'a machine resembling a human being'. It was popularised by the playwright Karel Capek from his play R.U.R. in 1920. Certainly one of the most interesting discoveries while I was researching words for my A to Z.
Q is for Quid Pro Quo, which is a bit of a cheat since much of English comes from Latin but it's Q, which is always the tough day in the A to Z. But it is again an expression used in the original; it literally means 'something for something', translated now as the expression 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours'.
P is for Pyjamas, from the Persian word pajama, originally loose light weight trousers. What's not to love about coming home from work and getting straight into your pyjamas with no intention of going anywhere or doing anything very much for the remainder of the day; pyjamas are the perfect clothing.
O is for Orangutan, because my words seem to have been very European in origin so far, from Malay, meaning old man of the forest. Tish had a lovely encounter with an orangutan when she visit Borneo many years ago with her college. They are our closest relative and the most intelligent of primates. All three species are critically endangered, mostly due to deforestation.
N is for Neanderthal, from the German, referring to the Neander valley where remains of these ancient humans were discovered. A small proportion of people around today have some Neanderthal DNA but they went extinct about 40,000 years ago. We like to think that we outsmarted them, and that's why we're here and they're not, but maybe they just all got a bad case of the flu.
M is for Mosquito, from the Spanish or Portuguese, literally meaning 'little fly'. Interesting factoid, throughout human history more people have died of malaria than anything else, so mosquitoes have been the biggest threat to humanity, and it still kills over 600,000 people every year. Mosquitoes also spread several other diseases so they are certainly a lot more annoying than a little fly.
,_Tanjung_Putting_National_Park_15.jpg)
