Photo: Shaul Schwarz
If you're a drug-runner in Mexico with powerful enemies, or an innocent citizen horrified by the increasingly gruesome turf battles between the cartels, you might well turn to religion for supernatural protection. A new breed of spiritual guardians have cropped up to fill this need, but you won't find these characters in any Lives of the Saints.
The most popular is a female deity called La Santa Muerte, represented by a skeleton in long robes who carries a reaper's sycthe. Anoher is Jesus Malverde, a 19th c. outlaw who may not actually have existed but has shrines in his honor and is often depicted with an AK47.
Alma Guillermoprieto reported on the rise of these cults in the May issue of National Geographic, with photos by Shaul Schwarz.
El Niño and Antonio say that La Santa Muerte will grant your prayers—but only in exchange for payment, and that payment must be proportional to the size of the miracle requested, and the punishment for not meeting one's debt to her is terrible.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.
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BTW: "Salado" means salty literally.
However there is no word for "not thirsty" in German. Try that.
Regarding this topic, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilunga which says "When asked for confirmation by one reporter, representatives of the Congo government recognized the word only as a personal name." and see the commentary at Language Log at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001104.html .
But there is one, very common Dutch word that is notoriously hard to translate or even explain: 'gezellig'.
'Gezellig' is a feeling, an atmosphere. It is usually translated as 'cozy', but it's more than cozy. A situation or room can be 'gezellig', but also people and objects. It's warm, peaceful, you forget time, there is togetherness, no complications or problems.
Some could even say Neatorama has a 'gezellige' quality to it.
I often use the word "shadenfreuden" - finding humor in others misfortunes.
It would be nice to see a larger list of words difficult to translate into English.
Lagom can be applied to many things. It could almost denote sufficient, enough, moderate, ample, appropriate but it is much more than that.
A portion of food could be 'lagom stor' (big enough), not too much, not too little. One's state could be lagom without being too rich or too poor. A conversation or meeting could reach a state of lagom to represent concensus.
It is difficult for me to explain, I personally think it is rooted in socialist culture where excess has no place.
The other is in ancient greek. I believe this is more common in attic and homeric greek than koine. In english, verbs have either an active(I am doing x) or a passive(x is being done to me) voice. Ancient greek adds a middle voice. If we take, for example, the verb "to loosen". In greek, with the active voice, it means you are untying something. With the passive voice, you are being let free. But, in the middle voice, it means you are being ransomed.
The middle voice simply has no direct parallel in english.