This post was inspired by the September 10 on the 10th post on Marsha in the Middle about words ending in -ber.
I didn't participate in that one because I couldn't find it in me to look for ten words for my English and my German blog each because they obviously couldn't be the same except for the four last months of the year.
I only realized that, however, when I had already started looking for -ber words and got a list of both English and German ones some of which were completely new to me.
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| Picture from pxhere |
"Reihenschieber" = "row slider"
A hand cipher system developed in 1957 and used by the German Bundeswehr until the early 60s to encrypt high-grade messages.
"Schlammfieber" = "mud fever"
A different German name for leptospirosis, a disease caused by bacteria often spread by rodents which explains one of the English names - "rat fever".
"Hellschreiber", also called "Typenbildfeldfernschreiber" (you have to love German words)
A facsimile-based teleprinter developed patented by a German named Hell in 1929.
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| Hellschreiber in Bletchley Park, public domain via Wikimedia Commons |
I doubt anyone would have believed me if I said these were among my top ten favorites of -ber words.
I also learned a few fun names of villages in Scotland and Wales (and will forget them again right away, I'm sure) - Ballintubber, Knockentiber, and my favorite Penrhiwceiber. Guess which one is in Wales.
Have you ever had "bonnyclabber"? The Free Dictionary tells me it can simply mean curdled milk, but also "thick, soured milk eaten with cream and sugar, honey, or molasses". My mother used to like "Dickmilch". I haven't had it in ages, but I think I need to get myself some just so I can say I had "bonnyclabber" which sounds so much more fun than just "thick milk".
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| Picture from pxhere |
If you wonder what this post is even about except being proof for my "jumping spider mind", it's about words and language.
Aren't words fascinating? How they roll off your tongue, how they twist your tongue, how one single word can evoke memories, emotions, scents, images? Where they come from?
Or how about writing down a short, really familar word and looking it for a while? Have you ever had the feeling that it suddenly looked very strange and made you wonder how anyone came up with it?
Or have you said a word out loud before and wondered if that is even right because it suddenly sounds weird (which is something my sister happened to do in a call just when I was at this point of the post)?
That's probably one of the reasons why I like to read to the cats and prefer to do it in English than the familiar German, to savor new words or sometimes learn to pronounce words I already know because I never thought about it before when just reading them.
The other day I discovered by accident that the English ebooks I read on Overdrive (other apps probably have the same) have the feature of looking up definitions by marking a word which is for example interesting for slang words.
I can also get lost in etymological explanations in dictionaries. Oh, those rabbit holes everywhere!
I want to apologize in advance as I'm afraid this is going to start a new category on my blog and I'll be back with new words every, now and then. German or English.
(Maybe you should blame Marsha for giving me the idea in the first place 🤪)
I am laughing as I type this...yes, let's blame Marsha! I love going down rabbit holes, and how fun you discovered new words to you. I don't know that I've ever told you my great-grandparents were German. I can't remember where they came from, but I found them on the Ellis Island registers. What saddens me is my grandmother never spoke German. The only German word she used (and it's probably a bastardization of one) was schmerkase for cottage cheese. Her maiden name was Heinig. My grandpa's last name was Luderman so I've got a fair amount of German blood in me. I do wish I'd kept up with learning German, though. Maybe that will be my next hobby!
ReplyDeletehttps://marshainthemiddle.com/
Deal! 😂
DeleteHere in my area, we use the word "Schmierkäse" - usually in dialect - for processed cheese you can "schmear" on bread, not for "Hüttenkäse" (cottage cheese) although you can of course technically schmear all kinds of cheese on bread. Maybe it's different in other regions.
I think it can be hard to keep up learning a language just for the fun of it if you don't really get the chance to use it (I know what I'm talking about). Now if you had old diaries or letters in German or had long conversations in German with your grandparents, that would have been an incentive.
I love words and translations - I love that the French for paperclip is "trombone", for example. And for some reason, we've been collecting Spanish -dad words, which almost always translate into English -ity (ciudad/city, communidad/community, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI don't think my school French taught me that one. It's probably because the paperclip has a similar shape to a trombone? In German it's "Posaune", but the earlier form of the instrument is called "Sackbut" or "Sackbutt" which was completely new to me.
DeleteLanguage is so fascinating!
Yes, I learned it from a multi-language box of paperclips, not at school! It's el clip in Spanish, which is very dull!
DeleteMy kind of fun. I adore words and all dictionaries.
ReplyDeleteAmalia
xo
They really make learning fun.
DeleteThanks for stopping by!
So my daughter and I are reading a book called The Good Master that is supposed to take place in Hungary and they eat "milk" every single day for breakfast and Grace has been so annoyed. "Don't they eat anything but bowls of milk??" But with your mention of "bonnyclabber" I now wonder if that is what they are actually eating and not really what we think of "milk" over here.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fun one!
Who knows? Maybe Grace will like it better if you tell her it's possibly bonnyclabber. She sounds like a girl who would enjoy that word, too.
DeleteI am ADDICTED to clicking on words in an eBook to find the source/history/etymology of them. It's gotten so bad that I will try to do it when reading on the Internet with my iPad. And have I sometimes done it automatically when holding a paper book or magazine in my hands? Yes, yes I have. Haha.
ReplyDeleteHow funny!
DeleteI forgot to say...I think there are a lot of -ber words in German, but the thing that came to mind first was "Schicklgruber" after the Kurt Weill song, which is definitely not a favorite!
ReplyDeleteYes, there are a lot, but I wouldn't include names, anyway. And definitely not that one!
DeleteWords are fun! And I must admit a certain fondness for German - in spite of their length. They often sound exactly how I think something should be described. One that is my favorite and has made its way to some parts of the US is schadenfreude. Perfect sound for the emotion. (And a lot of it going around.)
ReplyDeleteI actually love how we just stick words together to make a really nice long one 🤣 Of course a lot has to do with us actually writing them in one word unlike other languages.
DeleteYes, Schadenfreude is a very popular one, I see it used a lot by people. Try this one which also works perfectly right now - "Fremdschämen" (to be embarrassed for something someone else does). I'm an expert at that one.