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iorram (Scottish Gaelic) a rowing song

dizlanmak (Turkish) to keep humming to yourself

Ohrwurm (German) a catchy tune that gets stuck in the brain or rapidly obsesses an entire population (literally, an ear worm)

ngak-ngik-ngok (Indonesian) a derogatory reference to the popularity of rock music in the 1960s (which was much despised by the late President Sukarno)

Twirling

… or of dancing

raspar canillas (Spanish, Central America) to dance (literally, to scrape shins)

zapateado (Spanish) the fast footwork and stamping feet used in dancing

mbuki-mvuki (Bantu, Zaire) to take off one’s clothes in order to dance

Ball paradox (German) a ball at which women ask men to dance

verbunkos (Hungarian) a dance performed to persuade people to enlist in the army

Clubbing

The Italians helpfully differentiate between the staff outside and inside a night club: the buttadentro, the one who throws you in, is the person in charge of choosing who gets through the door; while the buttafuori, the one who throws you out, is the bouncer.

Channel surfing

For those who prefer to stay at home, there’s always the television, or Pantoffelkino (slippers cinema), as it’s described in German. The Romani language of the Gypsies takes a rather sterner view, regarding it as a dinnilos-dicking-muktar, or fool’s looking-box. Those with extra channels seem to be viewed as a cut-above in France, where cablé has now acquired the secondary sense of ‘hip and trendy’.

Hi-tech

Having invented numerous machines to give us free time, we now struggle to come up with others to help fill it:

tamagotchi (Japanese) a lovable egg (an electronic device which copies the demands for food or attention of a pet)

khali khukweni (Zulu) a mobile phone (literally, to make a noise in the pocket)

dingdong (Indonesian) computer games in an arcade

toelva (Icelandic) a computer (formed from the words for digit and prophetess)

xiaoxia (Chinese) small lobsters (new internet users)

The arts

There are some pastimes that are elevated, by their practitioners and admirers, onto an altogether higher plane:

sprezzatura (Italian) the effortless technique of a great artist

wabi (Japanese) a flawed detail that enhances the elegance of the whole work of art

ostranenie (Russian) the process by which art makes familiar perceptions seem strange

Verfremdungseffekt (German) a dramatic technique that encourages the audience to preserve a sense of critical detachment from a play (literally, an alienating effect)

Philistines

Those who aren’t impressed by artistic claims have coined a different vocabulary:

megillah (Yiddish) an unnecessarily long and tiresome story or letter

de pacotilla (Spanish) a third-rate writer or actor

Rolling up

In our health-conscious world, can smoking still be regarded as recreation?

segatura (Italian) a cigarette made by mixing cigarette butts (literally, sawdust)

bakwe (Kapampangan, Philippines) to smoke a cigarette with the lit end in the mouth

nakurit’sya (Russian) to smoke to one’s heart’s content

zakurit’sya (Russian) to make oneself ill by excessive smoking

On reflection

Married in a brothel

Some words must remain a mystery to all except native speakers. You would have had to have lived in these places for quite a while to understand how to use correctly some of the following, which in their simply translated definitions contain what seem to us contradictory meanings:

hay kulu (Zarma, Nigeria) anything, nothing and also everything

irpadake (Tulu, India) ripe and unripe

sitoshna (Tulu, India) cold and hot

merripen (Romani, Gypsy) life and death

gift (Norwegian) poison and married

magazinshchik (Russian) a shopkeeper and a shoplifter

danh t (Vietnamese) a church and a brothel

aloha (Hawaiian) hello and goodbye (the word has many other meanings including love, compassion, welcome and good wishes)

Eating and Drinking

olcsó húsnak híg a leve (Hungarian)

cheap meat produces thin gravy

Hunting, shooting …

In many parts of the world putting