David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

A mixture of pleasure and pride, particularly the kind that a parent gets from a child. It is something one relishes, as in ‘May you only get nakhes from your son!’

This is a noun which describes the soul’s innermost desires; the angelic parts of human nature. Listening to one’s inner instinct to perform a kindly act is to let our ondinnonk be our guide.

The feeling a person has for someone he once loved but now does not. In the original Russian it applies to a man, but has become applicable for both sexes.

The literal translation is ‘joy in damage’. It is the pleasure one feels as a result of someone else’s misfortune, like seeing a rival slip on a banana peel. Schadenfreude is not as strong as taking revenge, because it’s a thought or a feeling, not an action. But when your noisy neighbour’s car breaks down, and you’re secretly pleased — that’s schadenfreude.

To hesitate in recognising a person or thing, as happens when you are introduced to someone whose name you cannot recall. A way out of this social gaffe is to say, ‘Pardon my sudden tartle!’

A mythical monster that scratches at the door. The very same ‘monster’ haunts the doors of South Carolina, America and West Africa.

A monumentally severe hangover. The inspiration for the early American comic strip ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’. On New Year’s Eve, it is common for one German to remark to another, ‘You’re setting yourself up for a real Katzenjammer.’ (The party in question may require some ‘Drachenfutter’.)

This describes an attitude of indifference to political and social issues. It is derived from a satirical political journal called L’uomo qualunque : the man in the street. For example, a great many people believe that the US president is elected by a majority of qualified voters. In fact, only 29% of all voters led to Ronald Reagan’s ‘landslide victory’ in 1984.

This denotes blissful dreams. In English we have nightmares, but no word for waking feeling happy. In Bantu, the word is further defined as a ‘legendary, blissful state where all is forgiven and forgotten’. The African-American equivalent for bilita mpash is a ‘beluthathatchee’, believed to be traced to African-American slang from its Bantu roots.

Zalatwic means using acquaintances to accomplish things unofficially. It means going around the system to trade, to evade exchanges in cash. Since shortages seem to be a fact of social life, these exchanges can range from the profound (a new apartment) to the menial (a new pair of trainers).

A hari kuyo is a shrine for broken sewing needles. In Japan’s Wakayama Province, every village has a shrine where a periodic service is performed for the broken needles. The belief is that the sewing needles worked hard all their lives and died in the service of those who used them. When they break, they are put to rest on a soft bed of tofu.

Salogok is young black ice. It is a famous fact that Eskimos have 17 different words for kinds of snow. In Hunters of the Northern Ice , a book by Richard K. Nelson, there is an appendix on Eskimo ice-words, titled ‘Eskimo Sea-Ice Terminology’. A sample from this work is ‘ Salogok : nilas, or black young ice: a thin, flexible sheet of newly formed ice which will not support a man, is weak enough to enable seals to break through it with their heads to breathe, and breaks through with one firm thrust of the unaak.’

Comparing yams to settle disputes. In New Guinean culture nobody discusses what everybody knows concerning sensitive subjects. Breaking this code of polite behaviour results in violent disputes. Yet yams are so important in Kiriwana, that people boast about their own yams, to the point of starting a fight. Settling this fight calms everyone down.

• Abstemious : adj., practising temperance in living.

• Abstentious : adj., characterised by abstinence.

• Annelidous : adj., of the nature of an annelid.

• Arsenious : adj., of, relating to, or containing arsenic.

• Casesious : adj., having a blue colour.

• Facetious : adj., straining to be funny, flippant, especially at the wrong time.

• Fracedinous : adj., productive of heat through putrefaction.

In 1825, one Major MacGregor bottled a message and dropped it into the Bay of Biscay: ‘Ship on fire. Elizabeth, Joanna, and myself commit our spirits into the hands of our Redeemer Whose grace enables us to be quite composed in the awful prospect of entering eternity.’ The note was found 1½ years later, but the major and his party had already been rescued.

In the nineteenth century, a British sailor, perhaps in an attempt to found a lonely hearts club, threw a bottled marriage proposal into Southampton waters as his ship left port for India. At Port Said, on the return journey, he was walking along the quay and saw a bottle bobbing in the water. He retrieved it, opened it and read his own proposal for marriage.

In 1916, a British seaman saw a bottle bobbing in the north Atlantic. He fished it from the water, opened it… and read the final message sent from the Lusitania before it sank, taking with it some 1,198 passengers: ‘Still on deck with a few people. The last boats have left. We are sinking fast. The orchestra is still playing bravely. Some men near me are praying with a priest. The end is near. Maybe this note will…’ And there it ended.

In 1714, Japanese seaman Chunosuke Matsuyama embarked on a treasure hunt in the Pacific. His ship was caught in a gale and sank, but he and 44 shipmates managed to swim to a deserted coral reef. Matsuyama and his companions eventually died of starvation and exposure, but before they did, Matsuyama attempted to send word home. He wrote the story on chips of wood, sealed them in a bottle, and tossed it into the sea. The bottle washed ashore 150 years later on the beach where Matsuyama grew up.

In 1948, a Russian fisherman found a bottle in the sand bordering Vilkilski Strait in the Arctic. A message was inside, written in both Norwegian and English. It was incomprehensible even when translated: ‘Five ponies and 150 dogs remaining. Desire hay, fish and 30 sledges. Must return early in August. Baldwin.’ The bizarre message became clear when it was learned that polar explorer Evelyn Baldwin had sealed the note and sent it in 1902. He managed to survive the Arctic without ever receiving the hay, fish or sledges. Whether or not he made it back in August is unknown.