Which one is more important?
Your uncle or
the sniveling shit-faced stranger
rummaging through rubbish to find his greenback?

Edip Yüksel
22 September 2015

English language is rich in many ways. You may cry in so many tones and ways, such as: bawl, sob, keen, wail, weep, whimper, snivel, sniffle, howl, yowl, bellow, sulk, brood, pout, bewail, croon…

You can describe a drunk in dozens of words, such as, befuddled, besotted, blotto, boiled-as-an-owl, crapulous, dipso, drunk, high, hooched-up, inebriated, in-one’s-cups, intoxicated, liquored-up, looped, pickled, pie-eyed, plotzed, pot-valiant, ripped, shit-faced, slopped-up, sloshed, soused, sozzled, spaced, stewed, stiff, stinking, stinko, stoned, tanked, tied-one-on, three-sheets-to-the-wind, tipsy, toasted, tweaked, under-the-influence, under-the-table, wasted, wiped-out, woozy, zoned, zonked…

In English you can cause disorder in many ways, such as, tout, hoopla, ferment, frenzy, vociferous, bustle, furor, ruction, pother, raucous, bedlam, chaos, pandemonium, mayhem, fracas, melee…

You can also search for something in many ways, such as: delve, ferret, grope, plumb, probe, inspect, rake, ransack, rummage, scour, scrutinize.

You may exercise bravery too in many ways, such as, courageous, fearless, dauntless, intrepid, plucky, daring, heroic, valorous, audacious, bold, gallant, valiant, doughty, mettlesome…

For money? For garbage? Well, let’s not go there; I will need much space for these two.

But, in English we do not have enough words for relationship. In fact, not a single word to describe some of our relatives. The word UNCLE is used for both mother’s brother and father’s brother. The same is true with AUNT who is used for both mother’s sister and father’s sister.

As it seems, extended family members among English-speakers are not as important as the sniveling shit-faced stranger rummaging through rubbish to find his greenback.