{"id":5058,"date":"2020-09-07T20:28:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T18:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5058"},"modified":"2022-10-24T18:36:43","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T16:36:43","slug":"mindfucku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5058","title":{"rendered":"Mindfuck\u016f"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first mindfuck of the week was the word mindfuck. Of course, we know this term in a common use in English, but this was being used in a Czech article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00e9ma: 10 filmov\u00fdch mindfuck\u016f, kter\u00e9 mo\u017en\u00e1 nezn\u00e1te<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(theme: 10 mindfuck films you might not know)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Languages are absolutely filled with \u201cloanwords,\u201d which are words and phrases that we simply take from other languages and use as our own. We all (languages, that is) do it. So there\u2019s no real penalty for appropriating language. We nabbed yoga<\/em> from Sanskrit, klutz<\/em> from Yiddish, and woodchuck<\/em> from the Cree. It would take the rest of the year to list them all. We are linguistic thieves and it\u2019s great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside content words, we have also snagged metaphors that we don\u2019t change from the original. We use schadenfreude<\/em> for pricks who like others\u2019 misfortunate and je ne sais quoi<\/em> to comment on someone who\u2019s hot in a way that we can\u2019t quite explain (ahem).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some etymological sources put mindfuck<\/em> in use back in the fifties and linked to brainwashing during the Korean War. But for most of us, the phrase gained meaning in the 2000s with the rise of the listicle and the new, surprising information about old things that can be conveyed. Now our minds are fucked by unusual history, film, and animal facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes the Czech use of mindfuck<\/em> such a mindfuck is that mindfuck is a loan idiom. Sure, they have lots of loanwords as the internet, Facebook, globalization, western influence, and Quentin Tarantino  make \u201cinternational\u201d words far more in use here. Sorry<\/em>, Paj<\/em>, Komin<\/em> (come in), are all seen now around Prague. Last month I walked past a restaurant which boasted Apel Paj<\/em> and Snickers Paj<\/em> spelled out in phonetic Czenglish. But mindfuck<\/em> is the first idiom loanword I have really noticed. Perhaps in twenty years Czech will be a vastly different language.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

While that is something new, the next mindfuck is an old thing new. While I was waiting at a bus stop last week to go have wings, a man walked by me wearing a shirt that read Marc O\u2019Polo<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything changed at that bus stop. The famous traveler was now transformed from an Italian to an Irishman. His habits became less about pasta and more about dark beer. His accomplishments were stolen from the boot and rewarded to the emerald isle. Also one of the water sports of my youth was now enormously in question. Many a day I had waded water, blinded by chlorine, calling to my slippery comrades: Marco! I still hear their mocking refrain: Polo! Should I have said Marc<\/em> and they refrained O\u2019Polo<\/em>? Would the game have been the same if it had? I think not. O\u2019Polo sounds like an alluring taunt. \u201cOh, Pollllloooo!\u201d The game\u2019s goal was changed from horrifying water sport to flirtatious coo. My youthful comrades in my memory were now wearing halter tops and garter belts. And I liked it!      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, I could get over, but now all of my childhood games were now in linguistic question. Was it Tugo Fwar, Is Py, Ticta Actoe, Monk Eyin Themiddle, Tru Thord Are and Mo Ther Mayi?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will never know. I\u2019m still stuck thinking about my friends in our community pool in garter belts flirting the names of Irish explorers. Maybe I\u2019ll go out and strike up a game of Dod Geball.   a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first mindfuck of the week was the word mindfuck. Of course, we know this term in a common use in English, but this was being used in a Czech article. T\u00e9ma: 10 filmov\u00fdch mindfuck\u016f, kter\u00e9 mo\u017en\u00e1 nezn\u00e1te (theme: 10 mindfuck films you might not know) Languages are absolutely filled with \u201cloanwords,\u201d which are words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/iggy.jpg?fit=225%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1jA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5059,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions\/5059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}