The German name for Anti aircraft fire ?

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

I know, Capitaine, I know. But you must know "Volkswagen"?

When the French had occupied the Rhineland (under Napoleon?), they left us better words.

"Boulette" is a fried little ball of minced meat; or "Kotlett" (cotelette) a piece from the pig;

and "Roulade" a rolled, thin slice of beef, filled with back bacon, mustard and sour cucumber slices.

You French obviously brought us some additions to our cuisine.

"Remoulade", "Mayonaise", "Sauce Bernaise" and "Vinaigrette" are commonly known words here now.

 

Most funny is the German word "Fisematenten".

German mothers told their young daughters, when they went out in the evenings: "Aber keine Fisematenten!" (But no Fisematenten!).

It came from "Visite ma tente!", which the French soldiers had asked them to do.

The soldiers gave the young ladies a paper with the number of their army tent.

 

"Schadenfreude" is a good one, Dej. The Americans also know "Kindergarten".

 

.

I think of some other unpleasant French words inspired from the German... La schlague (from the German schlagen = to strike) is the name for the stick used to beat subordinates or pupils, or for the punishment itself. Typical Prussian discipline... Le reître (from the German Ritter = rider) refers to a rude, arrogant, violent military; it dates back to the Wars of Religion (16th Century), when the soldiers criss-crossing France, scourge to the unfortunate peasant and his daughters, were often German mercenary horsemen hired by either side. To the same era of wandering bands dates back le chenapan (= rogue), coming from the German Schnapphahn (= grab the cock).

 

Fisematanten also reminds me of an amusing English etymology. In rural Western France, women have worn for centuries a hairdress called quichenotte, covering their cheeks. It could have come from "Kiss me not!", when this hairdress was useful to preserve their virtue from promiscuity with the King of England's boorish soldiers, present for long in this area during the Middle Ages.

[Olham 164]

Exploring the origins of words inspired from other languages could have been another job I'd have found interesting!

 

Here is another funny one.

When the Huguenots were persecuted in France, Friedrich der Große offered them a new home in Prussia.

He could very well use their knowledge and craftmenship.

 

Now these French often opened their businesses under the original French names.

One of these were the "Quincailleries" (Ironmongery).

The German people could not at all spell this tricky French word, and so they spoofed it into: "Kinkerlitzchen".

 

"Kinkerlitzchen" first was a word for a trinket of little value.

Nowadays it is used for unnecessary things, or for fooling around.

[Creaghorn 10]

AFAIK the french people in prussia toasted to each other saying: "Le jour d'amour" which meant "love of the day". the germans repeated this phrase like they heard and said jokingly "Schorle Morle", which then turned to be the Schorle of nowadays. a schorle is when you mix too drinks together, usually applejuice with mineral water or any other juice with water.

[Olham 164]

Damn, Creaghorn, each time I see a post of you, you frighten me to death with your Joker avatar!

[Flyby PC 23]

That's funny Creaghorn, there's a non alcoholic apple juice called Shloer. I say apple juice, but they do lots of drinks now, but I only recall apple from years ago.

 

On the subject of apple juice, when I was younger, we had a rugby tour to the USA, and in Vermont, we were being taken to a barbeque by our host's girlfriend, and she asked us if we wanted to take some cider to the party. Being a bit sick of all the beer by this stage, myself an two other lads agreed this would be a good idea. She asked us how much we wanted, and not wanting to be greedy, we all decided on a gallon each - 8 pints wasn't over doing it for a party. She looked a bit surprised, but back in those days, we were young and daft and could drink booze by the bucketful.

Anyway, we turned up at the party with our cider, and cracked the lids off our jugs. - No fizz. Oh, oh. That means either it's flat, or it's the real makeyougoblind loopy juice Scrumpy you get in dark shady pups in middle England. We had a quick taste and discovered it wasn't cider at all, but apple juice. We told our host, and she said yes, cider. We said no, apple juice. It emerged in the USA that cider is apple juice, whereas in the UK, Cider is fermented into an alcholic beverage often of considerable strength. What can you say? Nothing like 8 pints of apple juice to get the party swinging.

 

I have to chuckle however. I wonder how many poor Americans wander into a pub in Wiltshire or wherever, have a couple of pints of cider then discover there something terribly funny about their legs not working anymore.

Edited July 25, 2012 by Flyby PC

[Hauksbee 103]

It emerged in the USA that cider is apple juice, whereas in the UK, Cider is fermented into an alcholic beverage often of considerable strength.

"Cider" in the U.S. carries a sub-meaning of "fermented", but you have to do it yourself. Fortunately, this is easy because apples carry a natural yeast on the skin which makes a very good apple wine. All you need do is buy a gallon jug of apple juice, add a U-shaped water trap to let the CO2 escape, and leave it in a warm place. During my college days when I hung out with spelunkers (cave exploring) we spent a lot of time in West Virginia and got to know the local farmers. One fellow converted all his apples into cider, and bought apples from his neighbors. After it became a good 6-8% wine, it was allowed to sit in the wooden barrels until the snows came. This caused the water content to freeze, from the outside first, leaving a core of alcohol slush. This was then scooped out and saved. It was a mild-flavored apple brandy; delicious, but approach with caution.

[Flyby PC 23]

We were in a pub near Gloucester a few years ago, I can't rememer the name, but they had an ale called Pigs Ear. It wasn't cider, but a locally brewed ale, and a very nice pint which was easy to drink. But after three pints, we couldn't play pool anymore. And we were all big lads who could hold our drink. Partly from giggling too much, but the principal difficulty was getting the cue to strike the cue ball. I'm not exaggerating in any way. Pigs ear it was called. We didn't ask why. They had a stronger ale too, but a stronger ale was quite unnecessary for our mortal souls.

 

 

 

 

Edir Here you go - http://www.uleybrewery.com/ales_pigs_ear.htm

 

Wolf in sheeps clothing? They're not kidding.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Flyby PC

[JimAttrill 24]

As this topic is so OT it can't get much further, so let me add my 2c worth ....

 

"Pigs Ear" is (or was) Cockney rhyming slang for "Beer". Was definitely in use in WWI.

 

One of the strangest German 'exports' I have come across is the French name for the little round windows above front doors. It is spelt either 'wasida' or 'vasida', most likely the second as French doesn't really have a W except in a couple of English words - wagon comes to mind. Unfortunately my French/English dictionary does not mention it, but there are lots of words that dictionary doesn't know (Collins). Apparently the word comes from 1870 when Germans would wander round Paris and point at these windows and say "Was ist das?" It seems that German houses did not have these windows.

 

It rather reminds me of the word that the English-speakers in Natal use to describe Afrikaners on holiday down at the coast. They are called "Kaydaars" which comes from "Kyk daar" (look at that). It is not really a complimentary term, though terms for tourists rarely are. I remember the Devon/Cornwall expression "grockles" (and nobody knows where that comes from).

 

Oh, and AA fire got the third A at the time of the Vietnam war. It is purely American and certainly not used by the Brits. The Americans tend to call it "triple A" rather than "AAA".

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

One of the strangest German 'exports' I have come across is the French name for the little round windows above front doors. It is spelt either 'wasida' or 'vasida', most likely the second as French doesn't really have a W except in a couple of English words - wagon comes to mind. Unfortunately my French/English dictionary does not mention it, but there are lots of words that dictionary doesn't know (Collins). Apparently the word comes from 1870 when Germans would wander round Paris and point at these windows and say "Was ist das?" It seems that German houses did not have these windows.

The word is 'vasistas', actually. I had never paid attention about the similarity, but it sounds logical. Anyway, the best German export to France from the War of 1870 was probably the Christmas Tree. Another more widely known word coming from another foreign occupation is 'bistro', similar to the Russian word for 'quickly'. During the Allied occupation of Northern France after the fall of Napoleon, the Russian soldiers were not allowed to spend time in French taverns. So in fear of being caught, they insistently asked to be served quickly. The word has remained, and even through this etymology is not fully admitted, I find it amusing enough...

[Olham 164]

Great stuff, everyone - funny thread really!

 

Despite the fact, that the Germans have been anything but friendly with the Jews in younger history (and I'm well aware

that this is a bold understratement!), the German language contains several Jewish, or better "Jiddish" words (Jiddish

seems to be a Jewish language mix of Polish and German).

 

To really blow something is in German: etwas vermasseln. This comes from the Jiddish "Masseltoff", which means

"good luck".

When you talk about your whole lot of relatives slightly negative in Germany, you may call them "Muschpoke".

This comes from the Jiddish "Mischpoke" or "Mischpoche", which means "family"

 

For boldness, we sometimes say in German "Chuzpe", which is also from the Jiddish.

[Flyby PC 23]

Culture is an amazing for it's origins and suprises.

 

Long before Scotland was actually Scotland, there were indigenous tribes here call Picts. Their culture was stong and survived several centuries, but largely unwritten and long ago forgotten. For a long time people believed they were wiped out, but these days it's believed the culture was integrated with others, Gaels, Angles, Scandinavians etc. The Pictish era is very imprecise, but was well advandced and strong at the time of Roman Invasion to the South, but already by by 9th and 10th Century, they were culturally hard to discern as an identifyable separate culture. It is commonly believed the Gaels and Picts largely merged to become a seamless new culture, further enriched by the disparate tribes and influence of Europeans who had no appetite for life under the Romans. Most of what is known about the Picts, even the fact they're called Picts, has been written from outside by observers, with very little knowledge coming from within. It is almost impossible to identify any part of modern Scottish culture which is definitely Pictish in origin, but the Picts did leave some spectacular mysteries which have defied explanation down the ages. There are big standing stones, one standing 6m high, filled with Z-rods and enigmatic symbols which clearly meant something to the Picts, but nobody really knows what. http://www.pictishst...nes/3dscans.htm

 

The picts also had some mysterious capacity to build forts where the walls were vitrified, and the stone turned to glass, by some long forgotten process. The practice was common in Pictland, although not unique, however the spread beyond Pictish lands might have been Pictish influence.

 

It's frustrating to know the Picts are such a unique Scottish phenomenon, older than Scotland herself, and yet we know so little about them. Hope springs eternal that some new archaeological treasure trove will be discovered to shed more light on their living culture, because it seems it was a very vibrant culture with a stubborn and robust character. It's legacy must still be present in our culture, but certainly isn't well defined as a clear cultural influence.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Flyby PC

[Olham 164]

Wether their influence can be defined or not - their heritage and their genes are still there, I'm sure.

 

Some of the stones show crosses - does that mean, that the Picts had contact with early Christianity?

[Bullethead 12]

Funny thing about the word "cider". It's actually a survival of "cyser", which was its predecessor, a type of mead where the honey is diluted with apple juice instead of water. In fact, many wines today carry the names of the mead varieties they also replaced, such as "claret" replaced "clare".

 

On the subject of local words and phrases, my part of Lousy Anna has quite a few from many sources because for a long time this area was on or near the border between 2 or 3 great empires at different times (French, Spanish, and British), plus has a lot of African, some straight from the source and some filtered through French or Spanish islands in the Caribbean first. And then, of course, quite a few Indian words, some from quite far away. And many of these words were rendered (often poorly) into the orthography of whatever European power owned the area at the time, then retranscribed into another orthography when a new boss took over.

 

My favorite is "lagniappe", which these days is seen as a characteristic Lousy Anna word that's threatening to go mainstream. These days, it means a freebie, something extra thrown into the deal just to be nice, along the lines of "buy 2, get 1 free". Most folks look at the spelling and think it's French, but the best guess is that it's Quechan (the language of the Inca Empire). The original word was "ñapa" and apparently it originally had exactly the same meaning as the Persian "baksheesh", something to grease the wheels of the native bureaucracy. The Spanish in Peru adopted the term as "la ñapa" for use in their colonial bureaucracy, and some of their descendants brought it with them to Lousy Anna. Here, it quickly became so indispensible to local affairs that it remained in use when the French took the area over from the Spanish. But they had to give it a French spelling, so now it's "lagniappe". It's original meaning was then taken over by English words like "bribery" and "kickback", so today "lagniappe" has a much friendlier connotation.

 

Other interesting Lousy Anna words:

 

Maringouin = mosquito. This word came from Guarani, an Indian language from Paraguay. How it got here, I have no idea, but it entered colonial French long ago because it's also used in Quebec. There's a town of this name here.

 

Cocodrie = alligator. A Cajun "Spoonerism" of "crocodille"; unknown what caused this corruption. Also the name of a Lousy Anna town.

 

Carencro = buzzard. A Cajun version of Franglish, from "carrion crow". Also immortalized as a town name.

 

(NOTE: These 3 town names tell you all you need to know about Lousy Anna ).

 

 

Chaoui = Cajun for "raccoon". From the Choctaw "shaui". NOTE: "Raccoon" itself is Algonquin.

 

Ouaouaron = bullfrog. This is an Iroquoian word, also common in Quebec.

 

 

Les maringouins on tout mangé ma belle

Ils ont quitter que les gros orteils

C'est pour me faire des bouchons de liège

C'est pour boucher mes demi-bouteilles

 

Et ton papa r'semb' un éléfant

Et ta maman r'semb' un tomobile

Et ton 'tit frère r'semb' un ouaouaron

Et ta 'tite soeur r'semb' un coin d'banquette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2012 by Bullethead