Each and every human language on this little planet in a galaxy whose alien name we simply do not know is a gem.
Language is a window on reality and, at the same time, it creates that reality in the first place.
If that's too heavy for you on Christmas, go check out Disney.com or think about the languages of other animals. We don't understand much of them yet, but listening to the two cats chatting on the window sill while another one sings her Chinese opera surely means they, too, have something to say.
While the struggle over who owns the definition of words and expressions takes a back seat on Christmas, largely because the sugar rush from the various foods and the exhaustion of getting Christmas just right take their toll, we have three German terms you don't need to know.
But a few paragraphs down, you'll be glad we told you.
It began with Weihnachten, die Hochzeit des Zanks, a headline from a couple of weeks ago. It means Christmas, peak time for dispute. If you have ever done a Christian Christmas, you have experienced it, or you know someone who has.
But the fun in the German phrase lies in the word Hochzeit, which just so happens to also be the German word for wedding.
In linguistic terms, both meanings are derived from hoch (high, peak") and Zeit (time, event). Germany's infallible equivalent to Webster, the Duden, fails to list the first of those meanings, giving only the wedding and a totally obscure one from the days of movable type printing.
Just to show of our encyclopedic knowledge, Hochzeit is also used in auto manufacturing as the act of putting the engine into the vehicle.
The next headline today is Durchfallquote an deutschen Hochschulen sinkt. Course and exam failure rates at German colleges down is our translation, good news. However, you are allowed to have fun with this and point out that the incidence of diarrhea at German colleges is down. Cafeteria food must be getting better, it seems.
Since it is/was Christmas Day, we would like to wish you a Schöne Bescherung. This one comes from the latest Coca Cola Germany ad campaign. The local gas station has been adorned with a poster of rolly polly Santa holding a Coca Cola bottle under a Schöne Bescherung headline.
This one has to do with the act of giving and receiving Christmas presents. Schön means good, pretty, etc. and Bescherung is an old term for giving of gifts.
So, if your loved one gives you a gift wrapped brand new BMW, schöne Bescherung is very appropriate.
If you then get into the car, back out of the driveway into a passing truck, you can repeat schöne Bescherung because schöne Bescherung also means "pretty mess", "what a mess".
Not just on Christmas.
If someone steps on and crushes the carefully hidden Easter eggs, schöne Bescherung. If the puppy you got for Christmas doesn't....ah, well.
Schöne Bescherung as an ad campaign is not quite as salacious as #DontJerkAndDrive -- but really only because the Coca Cola Santa has both hands clearly out in the open.
No comments:
Post a Comment