Re: USAGE: Words for "boredom"

In a message dated 06/18/02 9:26:07 AM, and_yo@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

<< >     Well, here's counterevidence--that's a kind of evidence.
>
>manaka: (adj.) boresome, tiresome, dull, monotonous; bored,
uninterested.
>
Is there a corresponding abstract "boredom"? >>

    You'd use the same word; I just arbitrarily gave it the "adj." tag since
most of the definitions were adjectives.  In my dictionary they don't list
anything like "n" and "adj" because you can zero-derive pretty much anything.
 So, /manaka:/ means "boring" (adj.), "boredom" (n.), "to be boring" (v.),
and "boringly" (adv.).  You can attach the causative and get "ho'omanaka:",
which means "to cause boredom".  And it's an old word, descended from one of
the Proto-Polynesians, so it was pre-colonization.
    I'm sure if you looked into all pre-industrial societal languages you'd
find some that don't have a word for "boredom" and others that do.  I think
it's presumptive to draw any conclusions from the fact that a given language
doesn't have a word for bordom.  English doesn't have a word or expression
for the feeling you get when you've just left someone and then suddenly think
of the perfect thing to say once it's too late ("esprit d'escalier", en
Français); it doesn't mean English speakers don't feel it, or don't talk
about it.  In fact, if you were to look through a Hawaiian dictionary, you'd
find a whole host of words for familiar feelings that English doesn't have
words for, like the feeling you get in your stomach when you look down from a
high cliff (it's /mania/--cute pun, huh?).  Just because there are or aren't
words for some things isn't evidence enough to condemn or praise some facit
of a particular culture, e.g., "Modern man is so fallen".

-David

"fawiT, Gug&g, tSagZil-a-Gariz, waj min DidZejsat wazid..."
"Soft, driven, slow and mad, like some new language..."
                    -Jim Morrison