Tantalizing
In English, “tantalizing” means “arousing interest and desire”. It’s a good thing, a sort of Christmas-Eve teasing rich with the promise of eventual joy. A plot point in ABC’s ‘Lost’ may be tantalizing, a new restaurant going up in your neighborhood may post a tantalizing menu.
The word comes from Greek mythology, where Tantalus is a mortal who repulses the gods by serving them the boiled body of his own son - surely the world’s most inept attempt at ritual sacrifice. Even Zeus doesn’t stand for this, so Tantalus gets punished in one of those metaphor-ready ways: he is made to stand in water with fruit hanging over his head. He spends eternity starving and thirsting, as the fruit moves out of his reach when he grasps at it, and the water recedes when he bends down to drink it. It’s pretty creative, and you can try approximating it next time you’re really hungry by buying a meatball sub and starring at it without eating. Chills!
This is why in Croatian, “muke Tantalove” (Tantalus’ suffering) is an expression meaning “unbearable, messing-with-your-head torture”. And this is why I imagine readers of Mac rumors literally starving to painful death when some “tantalizing” prospect is mentioned (e.g. cameras built into screens).
This is why I love philology.
