slampadato (slam-PAHD-ah-toh) — noun: one who tans his or her skin using sunlamps.I must clarify here that the definition and the pronunciation are mine. Honestly, I’m not convinced this word actually exists. It probably does, but it’s hard to tell because slampadato appeared in a July post at Mental Floss about words that lack a direct English translation. This post went viral, and consequently a Google search for slampadato or its listmates turns up mostly other lists calling attention to the fact that such hard-to-translate words exist. (Among those listmates, notably: luftmensch (“an impractical dreamer with no business sense” in Yiddish), boketto (“gazing vacantly into the distance” in Japanese), and Kummerspeck (a German word figuratively meaning “excess weight gain from emotional eating” but literally meaning “grief bacon.”)) It’s considerably harder to find anything that explains where the word comes from, how old it might be, whether it’s slang or whether it’s widely understood.
I’m inclined to think that slampadato is a word that some Italians might know, at least, because it’s featured in a 2006 L.A. Times article on Adam Jacot de Boinod’s book The Meaning of Tingo, itself a collection of the world’s most oddly specific words. (Tingo, by the way, is apparently an Easter Island word referring to the practice of borrowing a friend’s belongings one by one, until there are none left, Homer-to-Flanders-style.) And this Google+ post about slampadato at least got a response from someone with an Italian-sounding name claiming that it is in fact a word.
![]() |
can you spot the slampadatos in this photo? |
Previous words of the week after the jump.
- acné excoriée des jeunes filles, adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
- barrack, beeturia, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
- catholicon, cecaelia, cephalophore, cherpumple, chilver, cockernonnie, coprolalia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, culaccino, cummingtonite
- deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingbat, dingle
- eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui, exoterica
- fabiform, Feghoot, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
- gallinipper, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
- hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hobson-jobson, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus
- ignivomous, iracund, isabelline, itaiitai
- jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
- kaffir, kakopygian, kayfabe, knipperdollin
- lagniappe, leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
- malacia, malison, maroon, milt, mongo, mooncalf, morepork, muzjiks
- narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
- ochanee, ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
- pace, pareidolia, pavonated, perendiate, perigee, petrichor, pettifogger, pettitoes, phlegmagogue, pismire, pogonip, pong, pruniferous, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
- quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc, quiff
- ronion, roynish, rubirosa, rumpsprung, runcible
- salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, sharrow, shebang, sinople, slubberdegullion, stan, stevedore, suovetaurilia
- tappen, teratogenesis, tergiversate, tetromino, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tutoyer, tyro
- ucalegon, ultramontane, umiaq, umquhile
- veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
- weeaboo, widdiful, williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
- xenodocheionology, xyster
- yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
- zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang
I THINK, based purely on my own observation and no real evidence, that "tanorexic" was originally used to describe the look of women who were both very thin AND very tanned, whereas now it's kind of evolved to mean just any person who is very tanned. I recall it being applied to skinny and orange Hollywood starlets back in the day.
ReplyDeleteAlso: I agree that "tanorexic" DOES sound like someone who'd avoid tanning, BUT. Apparently the "rexia" in "anorexia" pertains to appetite, so "tanorexia" could indeed be someone with an appetite for tanning.
ALSO! Consider the general American-English trend to say "tan" when a British-English speaker would say "tanned". "She's very tanned".
You theory on "tanorexic" seems entirely plausible. I whoreheartedly endorse it.
ReplyDelete