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 🤪)