WW #8: Idle Hands

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I’m in the middle of two weeks with no work, so I’m making words about idleness!

(Don’t worry, I’m taking this opportunity to do a major overhaul of the Lexurgy code, so I’m keeping occupied!)

In Muipidan, one can call someone who isn’t working atlenatade [ˈat.lɛˌna.ta.də] or k’anenatade [ˈkʼa.nɛˌna.ta.də]. These derive from the nouns atletade “manual labour” and k’anetade “skilled labour”, and so have different connotations. When used about oneself or one’s equals, atlenatade has a positive connotation, implying that the person isn’t currently burdened by unpleasant work. But when describing one’s social inferior, it implies that the person is slacking off or not being kept busy. K’anetade, on the other hand, is mostly used when referring to social equals, and suggests a shortage of work, that business is slow.

Kharulian has the evocative verb pwirlyezhim [pˠiɹ̠ʲ.lʲeˈʒim], literally “hand-sleep”, meaning “to be idle, to be unoccupied”.

In Nitherian, the verb chm-washono “to be moved around”, which we saw in Weekly Words 4, can mean “to waste time”. Nitherian also has a verb ymvo [ˈjɱ̩.vo], usually “to sit cross-legged”, which, especially in its intensive form ymvooslo [jɱ̩ˈvoː.ɬo], can also mean “to be idle”.

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