Deutsche Welle has put together an interesting collection of German words that you might not find in most ordinary dictionaries. Here are a couple of them…
Eierlegende Wollmichsau – German speakers can probably figure it out even if they’ve never come across the phrase; a goofy concept, all the same.
Then there’s Reinfeiern, a practice that the whole world could probably benefit from at times. I’m considering adopting this practice going forward.
And… Geheimratsecken.
If this is becoming addictive, here’s a link to a whole slew of (real) crazy words from Deutsche Welle.
On a similar note, for readers of ”a certain age” – all this reminds me of a regular feature in the old Saturday Evening Post called Heinrich Schnibble’s Wordenbooke. It looked like English words and phrases had been translated to German, but it was goofy German, and hilarious. I remember one group of words relating to airplanes, which included something like ‘Schnortenzoomer’ and the bigger the jet, the longer the word got. For anyone who recalls this silliness, here’s a link (skip the video) to the ”German” translation of ”For Want of a Nail…”.
I found another reference on yahoo.answers.com… as part of a thread for someone looking for the related book/s that were published at the time… ”Everyone knows David Morrah’s dogcatcher, a barkenpantensniffersnatcher, but no one knows Morrah’s name. He’s just ‘the guy who used to write for the “Saturday Evening Post” (…). Morrah’s narrator was Heinrich Schnibble… I laughed so hard when I read this, I cried!
Have a great weekend!
