On Saturday I wrote a lengthy piece about the current state of government policy on the stray dog issue here in Romania and in that article I mentioned the word hingher. The problem with this word is that it doesn’t really translate properly into English. If you type it into an online dictionary it invariable comes out as “flayer”. But what does that even mean? … Continue reading Word of the Day: Hingher
Oh my goodness, I must say that I really like the word cățel (cut-sell) in Romanian for a number of reasons. The most common definition of this word is a puppy, as in a baby dog. A lot of people use it to refer to adult dogs too, although in that sense it’s kind of “cutesy” or baby talk, because in Romanian it sounds like … Continue reading Word of the Day: Cățel
As you can see, the above graphic comes from Business Day, listing the number of people in prison per 100,000 inhabitants. Besides America there at the top (SUA), all of the other countries are in the European Union. Romania is right about “average” and has roughly 23,000 people behind bars. Of these, just 133 are serving a “life” sentence. I say “life” because in Europe … Continue reading Drumu’ spre pârnaie
Ahh… sometimes when I listen in on (or in this case, read) Romanians, I hear them use some pretty amazing words and that always reminds me to include them in one of my Word of the Day posts. Today I tip my hat to this fine post by a blogger, talking about how much she enjoys my scribblings here on the site. But what caught … Continue reading Word of the Day: Bălmăjeala
A lot of time foreign publications mention corruption in Romanian as if it were a single entity, one kind of “breaking the rules” for private gain. It’s understandable why some people would be confused. After all, the word “bribe” in English has nothing but negative connotations, utterly repellant to most people. Pay someone in the government to get something done? Unthinkably wrong. Nonetheless, Romania spent … Continue reading Word of the Day: Șpaga
All Things Romania 