I saw her today, I saw her face. It was the face I loved.

[venta]

Earlier today I was reading on Wikipedia about "paresthesia". Have you ever suffered paresthesia? I imagine you have, it's the proper name for pins-and-needles.

I'm pretty sure that any UK English speaker would understand "pins and needles", and that relatively few would understand paresthesia. I don't know about the rest of the English-speaking world (do you?) If I'd been reporting pins and needles as a symptom, it wouldn't even have occurred to me that that there might be a proper term for it.

Switching Wikipedia to German told me that they call it "Ameisenlaufen", so in Germany you don't suffer from the pricking of pins, but from ants running on you.

French Wikipedia wasn't playing, but Google translate helpfully rendered "pins and needles" as "Avoir des fourmis" which I think also indicates they have the ants.

(Google translate unhelpfully turns pins and needles into "Pins und Nadeln" in German, which is inconsistently literal.)

Does anyone out there have any news from other languages? And whether the slang term is used almost universally in preference to the medical term? Or indeed any English alternatives?

It's never before struck me that it's quite odd that we use the metaphor almost exclusively, and to the exclusion of its literal meaning.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Italians also have ants. (Formica is ant, which confused the heck out of me when I was a child*; formicolio is pins and needles.)

Oh, one of the English terms is formication, which refers to a very specific type of paraesthesia - the "something crawling on/under my skin" type. The more common "my dead foot is now waking up" tingling is much less unpleasant, thankfully.




* When I was v small - the summers of 1975 and 1976 - there were major infestations of ants, among other things. My dad's English was not then up to "there is another swarm of flying ants" so he would come indoors muttering darkly about what I thought was the stuff on the kitchen counters.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, it was the 70s... Unexpected hideousnesses relating to laminate worktops were an occupational hazard...

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Very true. Although to be fair, the inside of our cupboards were much more hideous than the countertops. Sticky-back plastic has a lot to answer for. :D

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've lived in a few rental houses where someone had clearly thought sticky-backed plastic was a good idea (apparently some millennia earlier...)

[shermarama]

But this is all tied up, because formica is made using melamine resin, and one of the ingredients of that is formaldehyde, which is the aldehyde of formic acid, which is called that because it was first isolated from the bodies of ants... In other words, it was named at least partly after ants.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, now I've learned something interesting and feel like today hasn't been wasted. Thank you!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know that now, but 3yo me was very confused as to why dad was cursing at the worktops. :D

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I use the word paraesthesia rather a lot but that's because it's one of my most obvious symptoms, along with peripheral neuropathy. I know far too many words to do with the neurological system now. :(

[venta.livejournal.com]

... And I have learned lots of words like posteolateral and proprioception recently. Let no-one say illness/injury isn't educational :(

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, they're great for Scrabble, if you find the opportunity to use them. I did get to play "neuropathic" in a recent game for about a zillion points. (Over "path" and a double word score.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nice one!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I'll ask at work, can probably get you Mandarin, one Indian language, maybe Farsi, depends who I see.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks. I don't really have any contacts for Asian languages and would be really interested to know what approach they take.

If I were in the office (which I'm not at present) I could round up a decent selection of languages, but mostly European and South American. I'll have to start asking when I go back.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ok, in Polish they say ants too. In China they just say a phrase which means "numb nerve".

[venta.livejournal.com]

I missed this comment when you posted it! Thanks for asking :)

Numb nerve? That's disappointingly non-metaphorical. Could do better, China! (Based on I have no idea what, I expect Chinese to be a language big on metaphors.)

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

I am reliably informed by my Polish coworker that they too refer to the sensation as "MROWIENIE" or feeling like ants walking on your body. While my Algerian colleague says that in Arabic the sensation is referred to as being covered in thorns (Chook (pronounced shook)) which also applies to the sensations of both de ja vu and goosebumps.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks. There seems to be a definite European ant theme.

The Arabic one is interesting! Likening goosebumps to pins and needles makes sense (to me), but deja vu is more of a surprise!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oh now both the Chinese and Polish person I asked also brought up goose pimples, which were "chicken skin" and "goose skin" respectively.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'd never really associated pins and needles with goosebumps before!

[augeas.livejournal.com]

Somewhat inconvenient if one "had to run away".

[venta.livejournal.com]

Very. One kudo to you, sir.

[augeas.livejournal.com]

I'd almost forgotten that the Ramones version in my head is a Searchers cover, and that I once saw the Searchers.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Whereas I got most confused because I could hear both versions in my head, and kept thinking they were two different songs (of the same name) which I was muddling up.

I once saw the Searchers

Good heavens, that doesn't sound like you. Was it deliberate?