What a Wonderful Word

I revisited the Johnny Depp movie Don Juan DeMarco on Netflix a few days ago. I saw it in the theatre when it first came out in 1994 when I was a newborn. Okay, fine, I wasn’t a newborn in 1994; I was a toddler. Okay, fine, I wasn’t a toddler either; I was nineteen. You do the math. On second thought…don’t.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Don Juan DeMarco. Have you seen it? Johnny Depp’s unbearably hot character believes he’s Don Juan DeMarco, the world’s best lover. Everyone else believes he’s delusional. One of the movie’s major themes is the question of whether or not it’s okay to live in a fantastical, delusional reality. In my opinion, the movie argues that it is, in fact, okay to create one’s own reality.

So I’m going to create my own reality. In my delusion of grandeur, I believe I owe everyone an apology. In this delusion, you have all been wondering why I didn’t post last week. You’ve been experiencing terrible grammar withdrawals. You’ve been contacting one another in a panic wondering if anyone has heard from me.

Well, you can relax now. I’m back. It’s been a crazy month because my two very best friends got married within a few weeks of each other. I have, consequently, been organizing wedding showers, bachelorette parties, strippers, and toasts.

Both weddings were beautiful, but I can’t help wishing that I could turn back time so that I could have read the article 14 More Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent before I gave my toast on Saturday. There are definitely some words I could have used that would have made me sound more worldly.

I could have, for example, said that my friend experienced koi no yokan when she first met her husband. That’s a Japanese word that means “upon first meeting a person you know that the two of you will fall in love.”

I might have been able to work in the Brazilian word cafune, which means “tenderly running your fingers through your lover’s hair.” Although, that may have been a bit creepy.

I would have definitely said that my friend loves her husband so much that she often experiences gren-jai. That’s a Thai word that means “the feeling you get when you don’t want someone to do something for you because it would be a pain for them.” I have never personally experienced that feeling, but my friend is much nicer than I am.

However, as I said, the weddings were great, and the last one was especially crazy. I mean, you know it’s a good wedding when half the guests had to rhwe. That’s a Tsongan word that means “to sleep on the floor without a mat while drunk and naked.”