Budapest is... egy iszonyúan trendi és jópofa hely
Thursday, October 20, 2005
So, how would you describe Budapest? What words would sum up this... well, what should we call it? Lost for words?
Are your thoughts in an incipient, inchoate form, not quite to the point of articulation? Well, try Googlism then.
Doing so, currently provides you with these descriptions scraped from webpages around the world:
Googlism for: budapest
budapest is spa town
budapest is calling for applications
budapest is on a roll
budapest is a strange and sometimes wonderful city
implements a range of programs in civil society
budapest is the home office of approximately 30 consultants
budapest is excellent by international standards
budapest is also renowned for its hot springs and is a wonderful place to indulge in one of the traditional spa pamperings without spending the traditional spa
budapest is the heart
budapest is a sprawling city
budapest is not really a shopping city
budapest is eben een goede keus voor een
budapest is kind of like the la of eastern europe
budapest is the capital and largest city in hungary
budapest is beautiful
budapest is one of the most attractive european capitals
budapest is a beautiful city located on the blue danube
budapest is situated right next to chain bridge on the pest side… a location that lends new meaning to
budapest is the capital of hungary and with a population of 2 million somewhat depressive
budapest is ideally located in the heart of the city
budapest is a capital city of hungary
budapest is home to one in five hungarians
budapest is easily the most happening capital in the former eastern bloc
budapest is an informal association of creative people in diverse fields of art
budapest is the only metropolis in hungary
budapest is falling
budapest is often being referred to as the "paris of the east"
budapest is
budapest is a city where the most striking feature is the charm of the buildings
budapest is located at
budapest is that it lies on the two banks of the danube where the buda mountains and the plain of pest meet
budapest is combined from two major parts
budapest is quite touristy
budapest is divided by the danube river into a flat eastern half
budapest is a thriving city with over two million people
budapest is one of the standout tourist cities of the former eastern bloc
budapest is complete without a visit to one of its famous thermal baths
budapest is home to the national zoo
budapest is a grande dame
budapest is trying to make the government move the regional borders and include another three counties
budapest is the undisputed capital of 1100 year old hungary
budapest is located in the centre of the business
budapest is a traffic junction in eastern central europe
budapest is not uncommon
budapest is situated at the point where mountainous transdanubia
budapest is full of energy and you'll always find something interesting to do or to see
budapest is one of the few capitals in europe with an active traditional music and folk dance scene
budapest is slowly being restored
budapest is one of the most
budapest is only a
budapest is the capital of hungary
budapest is directly connected with all major european airports as well as new york and toronto
budapest is a beautiful city strategically located astride the danube river
budapest is everything a trip should be
budapest is an amazing place that anyone can enjoy and i can't recommend it enough
budapest is a fun city to visit for several days
budapest is formed by the linkage of the buda hills and the pest plain by magnificent bridges over the danube river
budapest is actually the sum of two cities
budapest is best
budapest is an extremely cosmopolitan city
budapest is its geographical position
budapest is an ideal tourist destination
budapest is a very old and beautiful city
budapest is a travelers's delight
budapest is well connected with frequent trains
budapest is one of the most majestic capital cities of europe
budapest is located at the Arpad hid metro station
budapest is currently growing into a major it centre in central europe in the very centre of a new
budapest is the political
budapest is often called the 'pearl of the danube'
budapest is becoming more like the other
budapest is one of the finest situated cities in the world
budapest is actually three cities
budapest is to support the development of 'bridges' of communication between eminent leaders and peoples of various disciplines
budapest is a perfect place for such a conference
budapest is the capital
budapest is located in the city centre
budapest is een geweldige stad
budapest is located on the grand boulevard in the shopping area and close to st stephen's basilica
budapest is a fairly large city
budapest is the capital waterworks rt
I found this resource via the Judapest blog, which also has a great new linguistics feature in the right sidebar, giving Hungarian words derived from Jewish sources eg.
Szemita Szótár (új!)
Pacák: 'férfi' a jiddis pacef-ből. A héberből, pacek, került a jiddisbe, de itt jelentése még 'arc'.
(trans. 'Pacák', meaning a 'man' is a yiddish term derived from Pacef. 'Pacef' itself is derived from Hebrew sources, were it originally meant 'face').
On the face-bloke semantic continuum in Hungarian there are other etymologies of interest (to me!).
The word 'arc' can mean 'face' or 'cheek' and for some reason 'pofa' also meaning 'face' or 'cheek', but also 'bloke' is a mildly rude word in Hungarian (in some circles). Something like 'phizzog' or 'mug'. But as part of 'jópofa' and describing a person or place it means something like 'cool', 'a laugh', 'happening'...
5 Comments:
"budapest is a grande dame"...
...who was once very beautiful and elegant, but whose age and decrepitude is now starting to show through the cracks in her mascara!
Still, she's growing old disgracefully and has more character than her two nearest dolled-up competitors(Vienna & prague) put together!
Would almost be willing to bet. Almost. That 'Pacef' was Latin in origin before it was Hebrew.
To similar to 'Face/Faci' to be coincidence.
But then Pacef might have slipped into Latin from Hebrew.
btw if you didn't know, 'pasas' is ostensibly from turkisk, 'Pasha'.
As is imatkozni, = (Imman).
Paul,
It made me think of what Budapest would be like personified too. First thought was the ubiquitous freeloading 'businessmen', but the 'grande dame' stuck out for me too.
It's a difficult one. I'm still fighting myself to remain upbeat and not go completely native. I just haven't had the mental training from birth to be able to take the special mix of angst, ennui, schadenfreude and deep sense of an unnameable, irredeamable loss that percolates around these parts.
And I think that's it, right now this place is like a very moody, but intelligent, teenager. One minute it's grunting to itself about how badly it's being done to by everyone else ("but it's not fair!"), next it's wontonly destroying everything you've always valued (property, reputation, savings, self-esteem...)
Though I do like pestiside's wife beater analogy.
One thing's for sure, as a human this place would need medication and some serious therapy to help it work through its problems.
Varangy,
It just makes me lament the lack of a decent dictionary on the same standing as the OED for the Hungarian language. There are plenty of small books, which I buy, but just being able to pick up an authoritative tome to cover all szófejtések would be fantastic.
There's a pretty authoritative Angol-Magyar szotar at HIX MOKA archive for 2004-06-05 20:30:05+02 that might interest you.
In that list is a word/phrase/way of life that expat residents should acquaint themselves with early on:
lekenyerezés - a payoff, back-hander, derived from the verb lekenyerezni meaning 'the standard answer to the question "how the hell do you think they got so rich?"'
p.s. All expressions covering such business practices gratefully accepted!!
The lack of a Hungarian version of the OED is, indeed, lamentable.
Knowing the etyomology of words and expressions is one of my douche-baggy hobbies turned obsessive compulsive disorder (vicc comes from German) --- but here is the weird thing...
I as a Hungarian cultural half-breed often know more about the Hungarian etyomology than does, let's say, the Varangycsajszi.
Yeah, that Hungarian education system, not all it is cracked up to be.
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