Press the button vs Turn the knob

Surely, there can never be a good answer to "Why does X language have a word for Y when Z language does not?" All languages have their idiosyncrasies in this regard.

However, from my perspective as an English speaker, it's languages that don't distinguish that are making the odder choice. If you're going to distinguish between the actions "pressing" and "turning" (as, I think, all European languages do) then it stands to reason to also distinguish between "something that must be pressed" (i.e. a button) and "something that must be turned" (a knob).

In French, yes, the single word 'bouton' applies in general to both buttons and knobs. It's the associated verb that makes it clear which one is being referred to, as in, you tourne le bouton+ (turn it), or +appuie sur le bouton (press it). English uses 2 different nouns but the same 2 verbs.

If words were a non-renewable ressource, the English approach would strike some as wasteful. Which is probably why in British English, certain types of people are referred to as knobs, thusly reclaiming the word for more and better uses.

In English, you can at least just turn something on or off. Other languages tend to have a number of words for on and off, depending upon what it is, whereas in English I can apply it to electrical appliances, water pipes, next weeks's street market, and my shoes.

But English is sometimes annoying in having words for overbroad categories. English applies the single word "nut" to a range of edible plant products of little common biological characteristic; most other languages do not have a single word of anything like this particular range of application. English speakers often do not realise, when a translation of the word "nut" is supplied by a dictionary or whatever, that they are being given a word of much narrower application than they may have intended. For example, nut is commonly translated to noix in French and nuez in Spanish, which each strictly speaking means walnut, which although may occasionally be colloquially applied to one or two other (Englishly called) nuts such as hazelnuts, but would certainly not include chestnuts, almonds or peanuts.

One foolish consequence of this is that when an English speaker claims to be allergic to nuts, they are, on the one hand, making other English speakers concerned about exposing them to a large number of different things, when plausibly they can only be likely to be allergic to a much narrower subset of them; and on the other hand at risk of making foreigners think they are allergic only to a small number of things, which doesn't even include the thing they are allergic to.

Edited by: MacAdamia

But English is sometimes annoying in having words for overbroad categories.

I don't think that's specific to English. Probably anyone who has learned another language has at times been baffled by a lack of distinction or the presence of too much distinction in the other language. Every language will be broader in some categories and narrower in others.

One that keeps tripping me up is "cake" vs. "pie." Other languages use one word that encompasses both categories. These languages make it possible, of course, to specify subspecies in the cake/pie world (flan, spongecake, cream pie, whatever), but the top-level category is undifferentiated cake/pie. In English you can't do that; you have to specify whether what you made or bought was a cake or a pie. It's annoying, because most of the time, who the hell knows, it's a cake/pie, dammit!

In Hebrew and (I'm told) Russian, when you want to talk about something that is blue, you have to choose between dark blue and light blue; there's no generic word that encompasses all colors that in English are thought of as blue. On the other hand, there are languages that don't have separate words for "blue" and "green" and speakers of those languages must be somewhat annoyed that in English you always have to choose between "blue" and "green" to describe colors in this category.

In Hebrew and (I'm told) Russian, when you want to talk about something that is blue, you have to choose between dark blue and light blue; there's no generic word that encompasses all colors that in English are thought of as blue.

I see having this compulsory distinction as akin to the compulsory distinction in English between pink and red.

In Hebrew and (I'm told) Russian, when you want to talk about something that is blue, you have to choose between dark blue and light blue

You can translate the Russian word for light blue to English - it is cyan or aqua colour (try hex #00FFFF).

You can translate the Russian word for light blue to English - it is cyan or aqua colour (try hex #00FFFF).

...or azure or cornflower or sky blue or robin's egg, etc.

Really, #4's point wasn't that голубой can't be translated into English. Rather, it was that in Russian a degree of specificity is required by the language and isn't optional as it is in English. At least as used in ordinary parlance, there's no word in Russian that means "any of the shades of blue from the very darkest to the very lightest."

Never thought of there being any problem deciding what is a cake or a pie - in Australia a pie is clearly something covered all over with a firm shell of pastry. A couple of sweet pies, like lemon meringue or key lime, might have a biscuity shell and a topping of meringue or cream instead of pastry. With just filling, without a layer of topping, it's a tart, anything else sweet is a cake.

The distinction cake and pie, mentioned in #4, is different in Polish too. Generally, it's one word, "ciasto", which is the same word as English "dough". But then there are other names for various cakes and pies, like" babka" (typical for Easter, but not only), "makowiec" (poppy seed cake), "sernik" (cheesecake), "jabłecznik (apple pie), tort (cream cake), all without the word pie or cake in their names.

Blue, mentioned by another poster, is an interesting example. There are four words for "blue" in Polish: niebieski, błękitny, siny, granatowy
Niebieski is the most common one. Błękitny is used for sky and sea. The English equivalent would be "baby blue" or "sky blue". Siny is used only for body (or flash), when it's bruised or frozen, and sometimes for sea and sky in stormy weather, when you'd use "grey" in English. Granatowy - for clothes and textiles, also for sea and sky before/during storm, equivalent of English dark blue, marine blue, or black (black sky).