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8 Festive Words You Must Know

Image: Ray Hennessy

Humans are social creatures and, as such, most of us enjoy an excuse to gather with our friends and family every once in a while. Whether it's because of a nationwide holiday or some small, private celebration, spending quality time around others is a fundamental part of the human experience.

Here, we've listed a few festive terms and delve into their history and meaning. Who knows? Maybe an item on this list will give you something to talk about at your next kaffeeklatsch!

Image: Jeremy Bishop

Originally, the word lū'au referred to the leaves of the taro plant and, by extension, to a traditional Hawaiian dish prepared with them. The dish is a staple food of Hawaiian feasts and it proved so popular that, eventually, the word came to be synonymous with the feasts themselves. A lū'au is typically celebrated outdoors and it consists of local dishes served on mats and eaten without utensils. Of course, to complete the picture, the feast is usually accompanied by festive music and hula dance.

Image: Christin Hume

Nowadays, the word "ale" refers to a few specific types of beer brewed by warm fermentation, as opposed to lighter varieties such as lager. However, both the word and the beverage have been around for a very long time. Up until medieval times, ale was a major source of nutrition for people from every walk of life, be it workers, monks, or nobles. Even children used to get most of their grain intake in the form of small beer, a highly nutritious but less alcoholic ale variety.

Going further back, some records attest that workers in Ancient Egypt were paid in beer, and runic amulets inscribed with the word alu, thought to refer to both the beverage and its intoxicating effects, have been found all over northern Europe.

Image: Clem Onojeghuo

This loan word from German translates to something like "coffee gossip," or "coffee chatter." If you spend any time as a regular in your local cafe, there is a high chance that you've been part of one of these, even unwittingly. Politics, sports, or the latest piece of news are just some of the topics that may arise when groups of coffee enjoyers find themselves in the same place, at the same time.

Image: Toa Heftiba

The earliest registered use of the phrasal verb "to hang out" as slang for spending time relaxing and socializing dates back only to the 1840s. As a noun, "hangout" can refer to both a place for hanging out or, quite often, to the gathering itself.

For a time, the term was so popular that Google borrowed it to name its videoconferencing platform, Google Hangouts. However, by 2022, the product was discontinued and largely replaced by Google Meet.

Image: Nicki Eliza Schinow

The Japanese word matsuri is most often translated simply as "festival." However, culturally, it's much more than that: the term is deeply connected to the Shinto religion, and it refers to a wide array of civil and religious ceremonies that often include both times of solemn worship and upbeat celebration.

You might have heard of Washington DC's Sakura Matsuri, a festival that coincides with the blossoming of the cherry blossoms (sakura in Japanese) and celebrates Japanese culture in the United States.

Image: Debashis RC Biswas

Known all over the world as the Festival of Colors, this Hindu festival celebrates the arrival of spring after winter and, symbolically, the triumph of good over evil. According to the Hindu religion, Holi commemorates the victory of Vishnu over the antagonistic Hiranyakashipu.

Holi is a time for merriment, and young and old people alike smear their faces with colored powders, sing, and dance as they let go of their troubles and embrace the coming of spring.

Image: Samuel Dixon

If you've ever been to New Orleans, Louisiana, during February or March, you are probably familiar with the city's massive Mardi Gras Carnival celebrations. An important event with Christian roots, Mardi Gras festivities often include feasts and parades that culminate the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the season of Lent. It's from these feasts that Mardi Gras got its name: In French, it literally means "Fat Tuesday."

Image: Josephine Baran

If, for whatever reason, you ever dreamed of participating in a massive tomato fight with strangers purely for entertainment value, you should head toward the Spanish region of Valencia during August. That's exactly what La Tomatina is.

This festival was spontaneously started in 1945 by the population of the town of Buñol, and it's been celebrated on the last Wednesday of August ever since, despite having once been banned for its lack of religious significance. In 2002, La Tomatina was declared of International Tourist Interest by the Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism.

WHAT IS A MEME, ANYWAY?

Catfishing & Beyond: 10 everyday words with different meanings online

Image: Onur Binay

Each niche of human culture and experience creates its own lingo, with unique expressions to describe the interactions and objects that define its universe. But, being a realm populated mostly by the younger generations, the internet has been brave and unceremonious enough to borrow its slang from various sources. In the online world, a sandbox is not a cube full of sand for the children to play in, and a troll is not a mythical creature to be afraid of. So, scroll on, and discover 10 of these borrowed words that mean different things in the real world and the land of the internet.

Image: Armin Babakhani

While, in the real world, a bump is an obstacle of some sort, in the online world, the term "bump" refers to the action of moving an online post or thread to the top of the list by adding a new comment or post to the thread.

This is done to make that post or thread more visible and readily available for everyone.

Image: Dillon Winspear

A word with a similar meaning to bump in the real world, but a very different meaning online, is "block". When we block something or someone in the real world, we are placing an obstacle in the middle of a road or passage, to prevent people or things from passing through.

But when we are referring to the action of blocking someone online, we're talking about preventing someone from contacting you on a social network like Facebook, or from viewing your profile. So, in this case, not quite the same but similar.

Image: Will Turner

The bottom-dwelling freshwater or marine fish with whisker-like barbels around the mouth, commonly known as a catfish, has no idea that humans call it that way. And even less so, does it know that his name has a completely different meaning on the internet?

In the online world, a "catfish" is a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes.

Image: Emmanuel Appiah

In case somebody needs a reminder, a cloud is a visible mass of condensed vapor particles (such as water or ice) suspended in a planet's atmosphere. It is, without exaggeration, as famous as the sun.

However, in the internet world, a "cloud" is something entirely different, even if there is a poetic resemblance between the two things. The digital version of a cloud is any of several parts of the internet that allow online processing and storage of documents and data as well as electronic access to software and other resources.

Image: Matheus Ferrero

Perhaps one of the most beautiful words in the English language, friend symbolizes a bond between two people who are connected to one another by affection or esteem.

But in the realm of the internet, "friend" is an action that involves adding a person to one’s list of contacts on a social networking site. Again, not entirely dissimilar, but not quite the same thing.

Image: Sarah Kilian

This one might not be so different after all. In the real world, the act of following means going, coming after, or behind someone or something.

And, in the internet world, to "follow" someone means subscribing to their updates on social media. Therefore, it could be argued that following someone isn't all that different in both instances.

Image: Crystal Mapes

Even though a meme was never a wildly popular concept in the real world, pre-internet, it was still a real idea. A meme is an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.

However, in the realm of the internet, a "meme" is a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc., that spreads online and is often altered creatively or humorously. In both cases, a meme is a concept that is replicated because of its popularity.

Image: Ostap Senyuk

Most of us have played in a sandbox as kids. It is, as the name implies, a low box filled with sand that children can play in.

But, in the modern world of internet programming, a "sandbox" is an environment in which software developers or editors can create and test new content, separate from the rest of the project.

Image: Jirka Konietzny

Maybe not in the real world per se, but at least in Scandinavian folklore, a troll is a dwarf or a giant who inhabits caves or hills.

The word "troll" is used within the internet world to define a person who sows discord online by starting arguments or upsetting people. Both definitions describe a mischievous creature, but that is as far as the similarities go.

Image: CDC

Something that is referred to as "viral" is anything that is related to or caused by a virus, spreading like an infection to everything around it.

In the internet sense of the word, something "viral" describes content that becomes very popular by circulating quickly from person to person, online. As we can see, both definitions share a common theme of rapid spread, though the contexts differ.