Make It Plain.

Mamihlapinatapai card

Like the much-rumored Inuit propensity for creating “snow” synonyms, Connecting Dotz‘s line of “In a Word” cards utilizes the nuances imbued in twenty-four foreign nouns and exclamations to convey subtleties within the human condition.

Of the host—”Uffda!” “Istikhara,” “Koi No Yokan,” “Skookum Tumtum”—perhaps my favorite is mamihlapinatapai, above (ma-MI-luh-PEE-na-TAH-pie), from the endangered South American language, Yaghan: “A meaningful look between two people, expressing mutual unstated feelings; literally means ‘ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other.'” Any six cards, $30; twelve, $49.95.

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