1776: The Explanation of Independence

Germans, operating with a somewhat more limited vocabulary than English speakers,* sometimes have to make do with one word where English speakers would prefer to use two or more to better differentiate between nuanced concepts. Sometimes this difference is fairly minor and maybe slightly comical. For example, where English has tennis rackets, ping-pong paddles, and baseball bats, German has Tennisschläger (tennis-hitters), Pingpongschläger (ping-pong-hitters), and Baseballschläger (baseball-hitters). Now, you could argue that there is a subtle difference between a racket, a paddle, and a bat, but at the end of the day they're all for hitting things. Point goes to Germany.

Other times, it seems like two words might have been a good idea. For example, the German word Erklärung, which means both explanation and declaration. When you go through German customs, you're asked to fill out a Zollerklärung: a customs declaration, or should I say a customs explanation. Fine - customs are a pretty dry subject; nothing to get excited about.

But what about this: "He chased her through the airport, scattering passengers and their suitcases in his wake. Catching her just before she boarded the plane, he took her trembling hand in his, got down on one knee, and explained his love."

Yup, in German, a declaration of love is a Liebeserklärung - an explanation of love. And while I'm sure if you grew up German, a Liebeserklärung is every bit as exciting (or horrifying, as the case may be) as a declaration of love, the word itself seems strangely dispassionate. A declaration of love is romantic and reckless, while an explanation of love seems like it would be accompanied by a lot of graphs and stats.

Oh yeah, she's feelin' it.

* Exact numbers are hard to come by (the prevalence of compound words in German makes it difficult to get a precise count of how many German words there are, plus half of English words are just straight-up stolen from other languages), but the general consensus is that English has a significantly larger vocabulary than German.

YOLNT (or ST)

When you move to a new country, there are cultural differences that affect your whole life. They can make you think twice before speaking, wonder if you'll ever make friends, and eventually have only-half-joking fights with those friends about which culture got it "right."

And then there are the the little differences, the weird ones, the curiosities. I like those the best. Things like this: You know how cats have nine lives? FALSCH! In Germany they only have seven.

What??? That's probably half the reason this German cat looks so sad.

Part of what interests me so much about these little differences is wondering where they came from. I mean, how did it happen that we all agree that cats have multiple lives (weird enough on its own) but somehow settled on different numbers? Is there an epic story behind this - a tale of conflicting interpretations where we finally, maturely, agreed to disagree (although not before a great deal of blood had been shed and a number of impassioned speeches made)? Or was there just a translation mistake somewhere down the line that took root in the public consciousness and affected the entire course of the future (cat-related myths being an important subset of the future)? We may never know...

Another pig-cool blog post

Pork and potatoes are the twin mainstays of German cuisine, but pigs, at least, seem to have infiltrated the German language as well. In addition to the aforementioned saugeil (pig-horny, aka cool), Germans can describe winters as saukalt (pig-cold)*, concert tickets as sauteuer (pig-expensive), and people they don't like as saudumm (pig-stupid). This doesn't make sense, of course - are pigs cold? Are they horny? They're definitely not stupid - but logic hasn't played a role in the development of most languages, and German is no exception.

And just in case you needed any more proof, please refer to the German dubbing of Die Hard, in which German John McClane utters the immortal line, "Yippee-ki-yay, du Schweinebacke!" (Yippee-ki-yay, you pig cheek!). QED. Game, set, match. Checkmate.

As a bonus, please enjoy this picture of me looking worried about dinner (and the prevalence of pig imagery in the German language).

*if it's a long winter and you need to switch it up, you can also say arschkalt (ass-cold).

P.S. My go-to online dictionary suggests "colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon" as the best/only translation for saukalt, so apparently Germans aren't the only ones with colourful cold imagery.

Canadians for sale or rent

Today in Useless Fun Facts About Germany (UFFAG? I'll keep working on it), Germans call canoes Kanadier, or "Canadians". As in, "Hey, you know what we should do today? Rent a Canadian and ride it down the river." Me: "GUYS I'M RIGHT HERE."

I don't know if it's one of those generic trademark situations or just a free association that stuck really well, but it's always fun to pass shops with "End of summer sale: all Canadians, 40% off" signs in the window. Get 'em while they're cheap!

Straight spyin'

While I'm not going to suggest that the Stasi* in East Germany was anything other than terrifying (because imagine not knowing if your neighbours, coworkers, or family members were spying on you and reporting back to an agency that could straight-up ruin your life), this formerly-classified document showing the many disguises of a Stasi agent is unintentionally hilarious.

Fun fact: Stasi files are now open to the public (within limits). If you lived in East Germany, you can go look up your file and find out what the Stasi knew about you. This represents the first time in history citizens have managed to force a secret police service to open their files, which is pretty cool when you think about it.

*short for Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security)

Just trying to help

Today, in "Facts About Germany You Did Not Ask For and Will Never Use": the whole country is obsessed with Kleenex. And not the boxes, but the little pocket-sized packages. It's a statistical fact that at any given time, 88% of Germans have a pack of Kleenex on their person. DO NOT LOOK THAT UP JUST ACCEPT IT.

A brand named Tempo dominates the German market in "facial tissues" (gross, by the way), much like Kleenex in North America. This is probably not a terribly important fact for you, but it is an expository fact for the following anecdote: Once, at an outdoor music festival (where it's loud, yo), the girl in front of me in line for the bathroom asked me if I had a Tempo and then looked at me like some sort of weirdo when I triumphantly pulled a tampon out of my bag. In my defense, if life was a game of Family Feud and the category was "things a woman might ask for in line for the bathroom", my answer would be number one.

Lolcar

Bet you thought I just misspelled lolcat, eh? WRONG.


The licence plate game is more fun in Germany, because every city and halfway-decent-sized town has its own letter(s) and then they just throw some more letters in there for fun. Nuremberg's letter is, creatively, 'N'. Fürth, a few kilometres from Nuremberg, has FÜ and I'm just waiting for the day when I see FÜ CK 293. Apparently they're out there, so if I don't stumble across one soon I might have to get on my bike and track one down.

Fun fact: Although FÜ CK is apparently just fine, there are banned licence plate combinations, most of which have to do with the Nazis (shocker). NS (national socialism) is banned, as are SS, SA, HJ (Hitler Youth), KZ (concentration camp), HE IL, and IZ AN (Nazi backwards).

P.S. Please do stay tuned for German lolcats.