Ass antlers, ear worms, and other problems Germans have
Have I mentioned how very, very excited I am to be moving to a place where they speak REAL GERMAN? Yeah yeah yeah, I know there’s an incomprehensible Bavarian dialect that lurks around, but when you’re not talking to drunk farmers, High German is the default language in Munich. High German, the German I know, love, and most importantly, UNDERSTAND. Yippee!
In honor of my impending return to German-land, I’d like to share a couple of my favorite German words and expressions. Perhaps you’ll even glimpse a bit of why I love this language so (although at the moment, I’m thinking my love for it is purely based on the fact that it’s not Swiss German). Apologies for any misspellings – it’s been years since I’ve actually written in German…
Arschgeweih – those ‘tribal’ lower-back tattoos (literally ‘ass antlers’)
Ohrwurm – a catchy song that gets stuck in your head (literally ‘ear worm’)
Vokuhila – mullet (short for ‘vorne kurz hinten lang’, or ’short in the front long in the back’)
Kabelsalat – the snarl of cables under your computer desk, behind your entertainment center, or if you happen to be married to a computer engineer, all over your house (literally ‘cable salad’)
Schadenfreude – “Happiness at the misfortune of others? That IS German!” (I really wanted to link to the Avenue Q song here, but I couldn’t find a good video of it on the interwebs. You’ll have to settle for this bizarre animae version. Listen to the lyrics. Good stuff.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me4wiUlOt3Q]
When we moved, I literally found one garbage bags and two boxes full of cables and other odds and ends stashed away in the office. Why geeks hang onto this stuff, I will never know!
