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That whatchamicallit | ||
Tags: Colloquial Language | Idiom | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| GRagazzo Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4961 days ago 115 posts - 168 votes  Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: Spanish, Swedish, French | Message 1 of 31 13 August 2012 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been wondering this for a long time. In English we can say things like doohickey,
whatchamicallit, and thingamijigger. These are all words used in place for something that you have forgotten the name of. Example. Can you hand me that doohickey over there? My Question is, How do you say these words in your language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 31 13 August 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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In German, you can say things like "Dingsbums", "Dingsda", "Schnickschnack", "Dingeskirchen".
Example: "Gib mir mal das Dingsbums da." 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 31 13 August 2012 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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In French:
C'est quoi, ce truc ? Il y avait un petit machin pour ça, mais je ne peux pas le trouver. J'ai parlé hier soir avec Monsieur… Monsieur Machin. Native speaker corrections welcome. :-) Edited by emk on 13 August 2012 at 8:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 31 13 August 2012 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some more English (British) ones:
whatsit | wotsit doobury | dooberry doodah | doodar And for people: Whatshisname | whatshername | wossisname | wossername | wossname 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 31 13 August 2012 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know I've read "un comosellame" a lot in Spainsh. I've also read "un nosequé" and "un
destos" at least once each, hopefully someone will confirm whether or not these last two are real Spanish but I suspect they are as they make sense. Other examples I've seen in English (not given by the OP) include a "thingymijig" a "thingymijiggle" (I must admit I'd never heard "thingimijigger") or just plain "thingy" (all of which I have used) and a "wossname" (this last one used a lot by Terry Pratchett). Edit: I see montmorency got there before me with "wossname". Edited by Random review on 13 August 2012 at 8:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| thusspakeblixa Diglot Newbie Ireland espaprender.wordpres Joined 4518 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, Irish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 31 13 August 2012 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Ireland (perhaps more specifically Dublin), we'd say 'yoke'.
As in: 'Give me that yoke there, will you.' I have no idea why. Majigger, thingy and combinations of the two are also pretty common. Edited by thusspakeblixa on 13 August 2012 at 9:58pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 31 13 August 2012 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Ha! In Norwegian too we would say "dings" eller "dingsebums" but I had no idea that it came from German! We would also use " greie" which simply means "thing". In Spanish I have also heard the term "chisme" used. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4957 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 8 of 31 13 August 2012 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Finnish, I have read the word "vekotin" to mean something like that. Edited by Ellsworth on 13 August 2012 at 11:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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