CHAT: "ennui" [was Re: Multilingual translation exercise, part 1]

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Christopher B Wright scripsit:
>
> > (Note: That was intended as a joke, not the start of a religious
> > flame-war. If anyone wants to start one, I'll make a separate mailing
> > list for it and participate with ennui*.)
> >
> > *I don't actually know what this word means. :))
>
> "Boredom".  How it caught on in (some kinds of) English, when there is
> a perfectly good native word with a transparent etymology, is quite
> beyond me.  But then the woman who had never heard of "egges", and
> thought they were some French innovation, was in the same boat.
My impression of the word has always been that it implied something
more like wondering what you're going to do with the rest of your
life, leaving "boredom" to refer to the immediate present.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers