You know what "Denglisch" is? It´s a mock, a misleading wanna-be-language! It lets german people wander around and embarrass themselves - I was sadly a running example.
"Denglisch" is mixed from "Deutsch" and "Englisch", they are anglicisms: An english word with a german meaning. In 1999 I ran around and offered potential employers a "handy number", wondering about the blank looks I got. Sinking into the ground after finding out... Please don´t laugh, it still does hurt. From laughing about myself...
Motorola was offering mobile communication for private use. To differ that from the military Walkie-Talkie they named them Handie-Talkie and in Germany those darn cellphones got the name "handy". I had no idea they were called cellphones or mobiles.
In this article (german) I found more.
An Oldtimer is not a car??? You call grandpas like that? And you call the vehicles "Classic Car" oder "Vintage Car"? Aha! Here they are officially, even by the Technical Supervisory Association, cars. Oooold cars. Or motorbikes.
Haha!!! What would you say if you saw me wearing a smoking? That I go to a fancy-dress ball as a life-size cigarette? You call that thing "Tux" or "Tuxedo". And makes more sense, too....
Just beam me up, Scotty! Our technically very ... advanced Beamers - you call them video projector! And we actually don´t use the word Beamer in a colloquial way...
In the US "Beamer", "Beemer" or "Bimmer" are cars and bikes from our good ole BMW - who can guess that?! What would you guys say if I announced I´m going to throw this pic via Beamer on the wall?!
You think I´m rich when I say I just bought a new Hometrainer, you think I´m into slavery? OK, you guys call the thing "Exercise Bike" or "Fitness Machine". Man I could just ruin my reputation by this!
And never think I might wear a Pullunder. They are out of fashion. And, btw they were worn above the blouse. It´s a sweater without arms... Um, I mean "Sweater vest", "Slipover" or "Tank Top". Never mind what we call Leggins, they´re out of fashion as well.
Tank top???? Isn´t a tank... aww... in Movies tanks... forget it. No, please tell me: Tank top? Got nothing to do with military stuff, does it?
Who knows what else I might have told people so far... who knows how many think of me as one of the biggest idiots ever met? Must be a reason why there are so many more english words for "idiot" ;-)...
4 comments:
Great post! You must have a heck of a time when you come to Australia. Nearly all of our language is slang. Yet it's hard for me to even KNOW which words you wouldn't understand, since I kind of assume they are English!! There's the obvious g'day or cobber or fair dinkum, but they are almost cultural now! Harder I guess would be the accent where we drop the last syllable and don't pronounce vowels - to the point where "wotcha" is a normal word, meaning "what are you". Wotcha doin' or wotcha reckon. (And don't forget "smack bang" from Hann's post!!!)
Ok, Celeste, I found http://www.cobber.com.au (the second entry via google even!) - and I´m quite sure it won´t get hot enough over here to need a cooling neck wrap ;-) Fair dinkum - undoubted?
What I love about your slang is, you make everything cute, like glovies and stuff :-)
Sadly when we were traveling... well, two german guys who only get amongst others in the supermarket or gas station can´t talk much to locals.
I remember in '95 an oldtimer (haaaha! :-)...) asked me (weird to write that, have the movie "cars" in mind!) "How -ya- goin'" or something and I was wondering...
Can´t he say "Hello" first and why is he so interested in our route?? But I told him which car was ours and where we wanna go next.
Got a blank look.... :-))
So sad the online community wasn´t so strong back then - we really had all the time, but didn´t know anyone...
It was so cool in December to meet Rodney, Deanne and Simone (and believe me, I had my difficulties to understand the bar keeper in the Brass Monkey ;-)...
It would be great to meet you in person next time for sure!
How about a ride through Kings Park?
My boyfriend said he was just there via http://maps.lone.lypla.net/..
I think I´d need practice to learn to use "smack bang", but it´s a cool thing to say!
As Celeste pointed out, even among the countries which speak the same language, a word in one country doesn't mean the same thing in another.
In the US, a "jumper" (piece of clothing) is a loose fitting sleeveless dress, sometimes worn over a blouse. Like what a pregnant woman might wear.
In England and Australia, it's a pullover sweater.
And the slang word "piss" has some interesting meanings as well. In the US, when you say "He's pissed" it means "He's angry." In the UK, it means "He's drunk." There's an expression in the UK that to "take the piss" means to mock someone. (No equivalent Americanism.) I think though, that "taking A piss" means the same thing: to urinate.
I also heard that some German verbs are being bastardized by having the English "-ing" added to them. (Don't know any German verbs, so I can't give an example.) A German friend of mine groaned when telling me this.
When the same German friend uses certain expressions, I tell him he is speaking British English, not American English (because I have to be a smarty-pants know-it-all. Can't help it. Language fascinates me!) I point out to him that Brits say "quarter past" or "half past" when giving the time. Americans would say "ten-fifteen" or "twelve-thirty." He's a good sport about this, though.
Don't get me started on the differences between American English and Canadian English, eh? ;-)
It´s really too funny with languages!
I dunno.. over here we have different dialects - I´d have difficulties to understand people from down south Germany - and sometimes even in this rather small country there are same words with different meaning. Whilst studying a was into flat sharing and got asked some day from the guy from down south if I could give him a carpet, he expects guests. This time I gave the blank look, thinking, what, whom do expect, some Hollywood-Star? Need a red carpet or what? He wanted a blanket ;-)
Hanging "-ing" to german verbs isn´t bastardizing, I guess. In my experience young people have times where they think it´s "cool" to talk like that. Other use a turkishgerman slang, which is pretty awful. Even my boyfriend thinks it´s kinda funny, but I don´t like him talk like that when I´m around... (because for many kids it´s real. They are bad educated, will get only minor jobs if at all, have no hobbies but hang ou in the streets, insulting others...)
In matters of time - we have the same here. When someone talkes in "quarter past-something" to me I have to start calculating... I guess only the older generation (and probably down south people ;-)...) talk like that.
Well... Canada. On Cuba I met some guys there. They were ranting a lot about the french-speaking Canadians, saying they speak pig-french. But actually they were quite nice to talk to, neither of us gave or got blank looks, so, no worries, Willow, I won´t bother you in that subject (for now) ;-)
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