It’s interesting how we borrow words from other languages to patch shortcomings in our own.Personally, I’d much rather pinch a bon mot to express a certain je ne sais quoi than employ a good word to communicate an I do not know what. French is a particularly fertile field from which to pilfer. But it goes both ways. Le weekend swam across the Atlantic to France years ago. And more recently, and amusingly, chic Parisians have been using the verb relooker when they are changing the look of something—redecorating a flat in the Marais, for example. German has has lent us some zingers too. What other language can capture the zeitgeist or communicate one’s schadenfreude (the pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune) so effectively? A few years ago, there was endless fuss about hygge. Seemingly out of nowhere, the centuries old Danish term became the buzzword to describe the feeling of conviviality and contentment. Quite apart from the fact that I always found the term a bit douche-y (yet again, thank you French), I felt like it was unnecessary. Because we English speakers already have our very own wonderful word that, in my view, conveys the idea even better. Cozy. So short, so sweet, so perfectly . . . cozy.
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