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Tag: language

Published 8. April 2016

Swearing in English in German

Warning: This is a blog about off-color language. And, as such, it uses off-color language. I’ve used the linguistic equivalent of TV’s black bars – the asterisk – to censor what I could. But if you’re easily offended, sit this one out. Don’t blame me. The Germans led me to this.

 

Germans love English swear words. They throw them in between the cases and conjugations of their German. They’re total potty mouths. They’re f*cking sailors.

The first time I experienced it was way back in 2000 at my first job in Berlin. A German co-worker told me to f*ck off for no reason. He was disagreeing with me over something completely banal but he shouted it at me across the office. Inappropriate.

I felt insulted but I tried to help Karsten with his use of pejoratives – it’s always the Karstens.

“Eigentlich benutzen wir  ‘f*ck off’ in so eine Zusammenhang nicht (We wouldn’t use f*ck off in that context),” I told him.

“F*ck off,” he bellowed.

Karsten 1, Drew 0.

Swearing German
Photo thanks Antenne Düsseldorf via Creative Commons.

But it’s a problem that comes up often. Out of the blue a German will throw in an English cuss word in the wrong setting or an awkward context and give me the feeling that my father is about to scream threats of washing my mouth out with soap.

Or at least warn me about the kind of company I keep.

“She’s a nun,” I’d tell him. It wouldn’t matter. Nothing matters when a father has made up his mind.

I’ve been sworn at in casual German conversation by the family physician, by Beamte (bureaucrats) discussing the state of the office printer and even prospective employers reviewing the competition in a job interview.

Even worse, Germans go straight for the dirtiest of the dirty words. My church-going grandma could stomach the occasional “damn” and who doesn’t need to utter “asshole” once or twice a day?

But it’s all f*cks and sh*ts with these foul-mouthed Teutons. And by “foul-mouthed Teutons” I mean every German under aged 60 – and a good many over.

They casually use English Schimpfwörter (swear words) so bad I can’t bring myself to type them here with the asterisks.

Do they kiss their Mutter with those mouths?

Don’t believe me? Check out this recent video from German bad-boy comic Jan Böhmermann (I don’t agree with the overall theme of the video, but that’s a different f*cking blogpost):

And a few years ago they started making grammar mistakes while swearing. Ugh. “F*ck”, unbeknownst to me, is apparently an adjective, which makes for some odd linguistic – ahem – bedfellows.  The “f*ck Fussballspiel” in derogatory Deutsch is a crappy soccer game, for example. Though tempted, I won’t elaborate more.

(Secret to German readers: Its either “sh*t Fussballspiel” in U.K. lingo or “f*cking Fussballspiel”. Thanks.)

It’s not that I don’t understand. Invectives can be fun. 90 percent of the reason the 10-year-old me wanted to be an  adult was to have the ability to swear at will. It seemed as cool to me then as it apparently does to Germans now. And I get it – they’re used to watching mob films, American comedians and British tourists. They think everyone talks that way.

But man I wish they’d be a little more aware of the impact. These aren’t just Wörter to native English speakers, they’re actual words, emotions and a childhood of scolding.

I guess Germans see them as novel, two-dimensional bits of language. But I often try to point out that they wouldn’t use the German equivalent so easily. Ok, you say, but they do it while they’re speaking German. It’s a different cultural context.

Au contraire mon Frere. They even throw them in with their English.

Swearing in German

Several years ago my father visited and he asked some Berliners for directions while I dealt with my misbehaving kids. The Berliners didn’t agree with each other on the best way to get to Curry 36.

“Zose are bullsh*t directions,” a middle-aged Berliner said in order to correct the initial set of directions provided by his compatriot. He was visibly proud of his English abilities. “I give you better f*cking directions.”

I turned bright red and muttered something about the guy being drunk (I’m pretty sure he wasn’t).

My father and I never discussed the incident.

But he tells everyone I told him Germans spoke pretty good English.

“That wasn’t my experience,“ he says.

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Published 4. January 2016

You Won’t Believe What This German Hedgehog Did Next!

That night’s good night story came from a stack of German books from my wife’s childhood.

“Die Hase und der Igel.” I read the title aloud as I opened the book to read to my kids. The Hare and the Hedgehog.

“That’s cute,” I thought, “The Germans replaced the tortoise in ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ with a hedgehog.” I imagined an adorable, spiky hedgehog facing off in a running race against the boisterous hare. At that moment it made perfect sense.

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The story began as it always did: The hedgehog minding his own business when suddenly an annoying, intrusive hare appears out of nowhere and begins hassling the poor rodent. Usually you’d figure a guy like that’s a Mormon. Or a Republican. But he’s not, he’s just a big rabbit.

The teasing escalates until the hedgehog and the hare agree to a race the hare wanted all along. And then the German version gets weird: Rather than tooling around a forest path, the duo agree to face off in a simple sprint from one end of the hedgehog’s field to the other.

“Fair enough,” I thought. “The story’s over quicker that way.” Hoping for a fast end to my parenting duties, I began contemplating whether to end the day with wine, beer or camembert.

Then, the hedgehog did a very strange thing, something that isn’t in that Aesop fable we all know: The hedgehog calls for his wife and tells her to dress just like him.

“Wow,” I thought, thinking the Germans had not only introduced a new animal into the ancient tale, they’d also included a bit of cross-dressing. “Those liberal Germans!”

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Then comes the hedgehog’s strategy: He and his wife will just stand at each end of the field and every time the hare arrives, he’ll think he’s already been beat by a hedgehog that hasn’t even broken a sweat.

What? What happened to slow and steady wins the race? What happened to perseverance? What happened to doing the right thing despite miserable odds? Where’s the morality play?

The hedgehog is going to CHEAT? I was so incensed I even thought in all caps. Liberal Germans indeed!

The hare and the hedgehog progresses just as the wily hedgehog predicts: After the first race, the rabbit thinks his spiky competitor is beating him and continues to propose a rematch in the hopes he will finally emerge victorious. The hare can’t, of course, and, depending on the version, either admits defeat, goes insane or – yes – dies of exhaustion. What a kids story!

For years I thought this poetic license with the original Aesop Fable stood for all that was wrong with Germany. Now I think it’s why German kids seem better prepared for life: They already know that assholes are best countered with fraud, deceit and gender bending.

I’ve also learned that the Tortoise and the Hare and the Hase und Igel are two different stories, one by Aesop and one stolen from Aesop by Germany’s own Shakespeares: The Brothers Grimm.

Once again the Germans are doing it right: Slow and steady wins the race is a garbage axiom. Anyone over 10 knows it’s untrue and as someone who’s run the Berlin Marathon twice I can tell you it doesn’t win the race at all: Slow and steady gets you 32,001th place, or 4,291th place in your age/sex group.

Next time I’ll dress like my wife.

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Published 28. December 2015

Things I Found Magical About Germany: Wagenstandsanzeiger

In these days of Skype-fueled long-distance relationships and low-cost airlines, the Wagenstandsanzeiger, or train car location sign (I know, German, right?) may not seem like such a magical beast but when I was a teenager it seemed as foreign as a bank that doesn’t need to be bailed out. It’s a sign on every German train platform that knows your train intimately and will tell you exactly where on your platform the train will stop – restrooms and all.

tumblr_inline_nzkq3sFpWx1sqqghr_500%255B1%255D[1]I came from a country where train delays weren’t measured in minutes or even hours but rather days. In my childhood, American passenger trains were never delayed by things like inclement weather or suicidal twenty-somethings. They seemed to suffer from depression, only getting up the nerve to traverse the country after a couple of stiff whiskeys and a stern talking to by the Minister of Transportation.

“Mother,” my mother would tell her mother through a plastic, yellow phone with a rotary dial, “The train was supposed to leave Tuesday but they say now it may be Thursday. We’re hoping to get there before we have to start back.” My grandmother never believed my mother. But after we arrived days late, my grandmother would complain about how late the train always was.

“I told you,” my mother would say. She never got along with her mother and, just to keep up the family tradition, I never got along with my mother either. My mother wasn’t blessed with any daughters so they drafted me for the role.

It was amidst this climate that I went to Germany as an exchange student and found the wondrous unicorn known as the Wagenstandsanzeiger. “You mean, they not only know which trains are going to show up at what time, but they even know which car will be where?” I thought my guest mother had become a wizard. How could they know?

My guest mother was just as surprised at my surprise: “Of course there’s a Wagenstandsanzeiger and of course it’s right!” She looked at me as though my skin had turned purple and I’d grown antlers.

And from that day forward I never rode another train without first checking the Wagenstandsanzeiger. It’s a tradition I want to pass to my children. Because I’m not their mother so they can’t not get along with me.

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