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single word requests - Is there an English phrase for an inability to actually *leave* already?


There is a Hungarian expression, küszöbgörcs, which literally means "threshold-cramp", and is used to describe that long conversation you have in the entryway, with all the guests awkwardly holding their coats and purses, and every so often somebody says something like "Ok, we really have to leave now, but just one more thing...", and then the conversation is good for another half an hour at least.


I've searched in vain for an equivalent idiom in English, yet I feel sure it must exist: I know English speakers are equally susceptible to this malady, it's not a uniquely Hungarian thing. I will sometimes use literal translations, like the aforementioned threshold-cramp (or doorway-spasm), but then I need to explain it, and that's less than satisfactory. (Plus it leads to more threshold cramping.)



Answer



In social work, doorknobbing is the word sometimes used to describe the phenomenon of delaying the important personal revelations until the end of the therapy session when goodbyes are being said.


This option has the advantage of actually being in circulation. It has the disadvantage that it also carries one or two very different meanings of a frank sexual nature.


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