Posts Tagged: German

  • An AI generated image of the world as a peeled potato

    Rösti geography

    We’ve got a German hockey player (Xaver) billeted with us at the moment. I served him some schnitzels a few weeks ago, and served them with rosti and sauerkraut. I quite enjoy cooking rösti (pronounced ruu-shti) to go with schnitzels. It’s a little more trouble than doing mash—grated potato with the excess water squeezed out, […]

  • Astle, whose cruciverbalist moniker is DA, inflicts pain on his fellows by compiling the most obscure cryptic crossword clues. He dropped Sprachgefühl, a German label for word-feeling, into his SMH column.

    Sprachgefühl and word experts

    A FEELING FOR WORDS—SPRACHGEFÜHL David Astle, famous Australian word columnist, dropped Sprachgefühl, a German label for word-feeling, he said, into an Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) story during the week (it was a story about WORDLE, the word puzzle having its first birthday). It is impressive Mr Astle but I am not sure you are entirely […]

  • mage of a cow referring to post Bandwurmwörter on RINDFLEISCHETIKETTIERUNGSÜBERWACHUNGSAUFGABENÜBERTRAGUNGSGESETZ—meaning beef labeling regulation and delegation of supervision law.

    Bandwurmwörter – German long words

    The German language German (Deutsch) is a sub-language of the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Central Europe. The area it is spoken in known as the German Sprachraum. German is the official language of: Germany, Austria, several cantons of Switzerland, & Liechtenstein. It is a co-official language of: Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy (South Tyrol). […]

  • the second most important event of 2020 was the US election played out in against the back-drop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

    WORD OF THE YEAR 2020—POLITICS AND THE US ELECTION

    Perhaps the second most important event of 2020 was the US election played out against the back-drop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Here we look at words from politics and the US election for 2020  (I have borrowed a photo from the Trump Tie Meme). The OED reported that in the early […]

  • Illustration of a referee holding up a yellow card to an All Blacks player with word caption SCHADENFREUDE in the background

    Understanding schadenfreude

    When you respond to other people’s emotions there are four very distinct ways of doing so:

    Sympathy is when you are unhappy at the unhappiness of others;

    Joy is when you are happy at the happiness of others;

    Envy is when you are unhappy at the happiness of others;

    And schadenfreude is when you are happy at the unhappiness of others.

  • Uber has already diversified into economy, premium (limousine), and assisted (to accommodate help with wheel-chairs etc) services. It has tried UberPop (for untrained drivers), UberPool (car pooling) and it is leveraging its brand into food, UberEats, delivery services, UberRush, and even water taxi services in Instanbul and Paris called UberBOAT (UberBateau).

    The rise of uber

    The hot new brand is Uber. Uber, although based on a seemingly simple idea, has revolutionized transport by creating a reliable and transparent service that the consumer can operate from their smartphone. As a technologically based service, Uber, has disrupted the established industry by making its own rules and gaining massive public support. Uber was […]

  • Spruiking —man behind a gift box

    Spruiking, touting, and soliciting

    I went spruiking for work yesterday—meeting a prospect with my portfolio under my arm. I was surprised to find out that spruiking is a uniquely Australian word.  Elsewhere in the English-speaking world they refer to this vigorous public promotion of goods or services as touting. In the US spruikers or touts are also known as […]

  • Picture of a dutch windmill in a field of tulips

    Going Dutch

    Have you ever noticed how we use Dutch ironically to describe things we don’t like or trust? It is often used humorously to indicate the opposite sense of something, for instance: Going Dutch means people pay for themselves rather than being generous; Speaking double Dutch means what you are saying is incomprehensible; A Dutch treat, is […]

  • zugzwang - Arthur Bisguier from https://worldchesshof.org/hof-inductee/arthur-bernard-bisguier

    Zugzwang

    Zugzwang In the dictionary between zounds and zulu  you may find zugzwang. It is a recent migrant from German and has not quite made it into all English language dictionaries. However it is a very useful word and I am certainly ready to embrace it. It has a spelling that would makes Scrabble players squirm with […]

  • In 2007 the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance defined the large part of the population who were 20 to 30 years old and still living with their families as bamboccioni. It means big dummy boys.

    Boomerangers and bamboccioni

    The boomerang generation earned the name because of  the tendency of many of its members to return to live with their parents after a short period away. They give up their independence or pseudo-independence to move back home.  (Pseudo-independence is characterised by coming home on weekends with their washing and unpaid bills). They are part […]

  • Zeitgeist or the spirit of the times

    Tapping into the zeitgeist

    Zeitgeist is a borrow word from German (translated from Zeit meaning time and Geist meaning spirit) which means the spirit of the age and its society. The original German word, Zeitgeist, is often wrongly attributed to the philosopher Georg Hegel. He never used the word but the phrase der Geist seiner Zeit (the spirit of his time). Zeitgeist has […]