Turkish
Turkish has many colorful placeholders. Falan seems to be borrowed from Arabic, and comes in variations like filanca (what’s his name) and falan filan (stuff, etc.). Ivır zıvır is a common placeholder for "various stuff". Placeholders for persons exist in abundance, one example being Sarı Çizmeli Mehmet Ağa ("Mehmet Ağa with yellow boots") which generally is used to mean pejoratively "unknown person". In addition, otherwise meaningless words such as zımbırtı and zamazingo are used similarly to the English words gadget and gizmo, but not necessarily related to technology.
Şey meaning "thing" is used colloquially for an object or an action the person has that second forgotten. O şey dedi,... (literally "He said 'thing',...") can be used instead of "He said that...". It can also be used as a euphemism in place of a verb; Şey yapmak istemedim ("I didn't want to 'thing'") can mean "I didn't want to make an issue out of it."
Read more about this topic: Erika Mustermann
Famous quotes containing the word turkish:
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)