Let’s say you’re part of a bunch of immortals who have been around since ancient times. Let’s further posit that you feed on people and are better than normal humans by any physical measure.
There was a time when there were only a few of you — the First Ones — and wherever you were at the time, you gave your species a name in the local language. That name would translate to “super-humans” or “immortals” or “silent killers in the night” or something like that. Something badass.
Unfortunately, time has passed, as it tends to do, and language has changed with it. That badass name doesn’t mean quite what it used to, either phonetically (I spent the last half-hour looking up the phonetic match for “douche” in Sanskrit and Sumerian but didn’t find anything useful), or perhaps the actual meaning has changed into something entirely different, the way “lesbian” has.
Any thoughts or ideas are welcome!
so wait, you need… what now? another word for douche?
I need an ancient word that means “badass” but is pronounced dūsh, or some other sound that has an entirely different (and far less mighty) meaning in modern English.
madhusūdana — means killer of the demon Madhu (from the Gita)… contains “dUsh” sorta
depends a little on whether you don’t mind mocking Krishna
Interesting – duṣ seems to be a word fragment that means “to sully”, so there might be a word that sounds like, say, douchebag that does the job.
Maybe duṣbhagavat which would be sullydivine, and probably not at all grammatic in Sanskrit.
Douche is just one example of what the word might be. Essentially, I want these people to say “We are the dj’k’weeds!” (or whatever) and have it mean something entirely different to the listener. It would be best if it had its root in an actual ancient language.
I once worked with an immigrant from vietnam (boy did he have interesting stories, father “re-educated” an’ all that). Anyhoo, his name was Dung (pronounced ‘young’). I googled it and came up with it being a boy’s name meaning heroism and strength. I don’t know if it helps, but “We are the Dung!” might inspire the giggles. There is that pesky pronounciation problem.
zounds, where is the moon widget?
The moon widget and one other weren’t playing well with others on a couple of browsers. I think it was related to the collapsing sidebar widget code I put in to shorten things up over there. I intend to get them back up over there, and get the duck working again, which I know you in particular have been missing terribly.
Unfortunately the best name for a “society of monsters” has already been taken:
Congress.