THE Times has translated for you the most untranslatable word in the world.

The word is ilunga, from the Bantu language of Tshiluba, and means a person ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

It came top of a list drawn up with the help of 1,000 translators, narrowly beating shlimazl, Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person and radioukacz, Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain.

In the English language, googly (as in cricket), Spam (as in tins) and gobbledegook (as in every Plain English Campaign press release) were among the most untranslatable words, but the top place was, surprisingly, reserved for plenipotentiary. No problem for classicists there surely? It means a special ambassador or envoy, invested with full powers. Next!

Whimsy, bumf and serendipity (the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident), poppycock (which is what you may consider all this nonsense), chuffed (which is what I am to be writing it) and kitsch (oh, you know) were other English words to make it into the Top Ten. The survey was conducted by Today Translations, a London-based agency which asked 1,000 of its linguists across the world to nominate their personal bêtes noirs. “My own vote would have gone to googly,” said Jurga Zilinskiene, the managing director. She worked as an interpreter herself before founding Today and becoming an award- winning businesswoman.

“People sometimes forget that an interpreter must translate not just from one language to another but from one culture to another,” she said. “Sometimes, the equivalent idea simply does not exist in both cultures. I am from Lithuania, for example, and we simply do not have googlies in Lithuania.”

A googly, for any Anglophones who may still be in doubt, is an off-breaking ball in cricket delivered with an apparent leg-break action on the part of the bowler. Howzat? The linguists taking part in the poll were native speakers of, among other languages, English, French,Turkish, Ukranian, Chinese, Dari, Farsi, Amharic, Pushto, Somali and Tamil.

WORDS LOST IN TRANSLATION

SHLIMAZL Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person

RADIOUKACZ Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain

NAA Japanese word used only in Kansai area of Japan, to emphasise statements or agree with someone

ALTAHMAM Arabic for a kind of deep sadness

GEZELLIG Dutch for cosy

SAUDADE Portuguese for a certain type of longing

SELATHIRUPAVAR Tamil for a certain type of truancy

POCHEMUCHKA Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions

KLLOSHAR loser in Albanian

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