Tag Archives: Language

German Word Of The Day: Unwort

January 14, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

That means un-word or taboo word. Which brings us to the German un-word of the year 2019: Klimahysterie.

Hysteria

That means “climate hysteria” (ín German it’s one word).

A “language critical” jury has selected climate hysteria as the taboo word of the year 2019. The rationale behind the decision is that it “slanders the climate protection movement and its efforts.”

Yes, as a matter of fact it does. But this wasn’t a “political critical” decision, it was a “language critical” one, right? The Brain Police are everywhere, people. Everywhere, I tell you…

Eine sprachkritische Jury hat “Klimahysterie” zum Unwort des Jahres 2019 gekürt, Ausdruck würden “Klimaschutzbemühungen und die Klimaschutzbewegung diffamiert und Debatten diskreditiert”, hieß es zur Begründung.

German Of The Day: Peinlich

January 13, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means embarrassing.

The “real Greta”

Greta 2

is so busy saving Planet Earth on a global level that a „Deutsche Greta“ (German Greta) had to be cloned in Germany

Greta

to save Planet Germany at a German level. Siemens is destroying Australia or something.

Cimate changed – German Greta Forces Siemens to Look at Coal Contracts.

This, I find, is peinlich. And completely wackedelic. But maybe that’s just me.

German Of The Day: Umweltsau

January 6, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means environmental pig. And that’s what German kids call grandmothers who aren’t greener than Green.

Umweltsau

It has a touch of Hitlerjugend or Stasi to it, don’t you think? German state TV at its best. It may have been meant as a satire but something went horribly wrong.

German grandmothers protested outside the offices of state broadcaster WDR in Cologne on Saturday after the station posted a satirical video about old people’s environmental carelessness…

The video, which is set to the tune of a well-known children’s song, satirises older generations’ attitude to the environment and climate change, including the provocative refrain “my grandma is an environmental pig…”

In the video, the children also sing that their environmental-pig grandma cooks discount meat every day, drives an SUV and takes frequent cruise trips. The song closes with a sample of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg saying “we will not let you get away with this.”

“Grandma isn’t just an environmental pig but a Nazi pig.”

German Of The Day: Neujahrsansprache

December 31, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Or German of the year, if your prefer. That means New Year’s speech.

New Year

And it goes like this, more or less: “Changes for the better are possible.” Wow. Thanks for that, Angie but you wouldn’t have made much of a cheerleader.

When I hear somebody say “changes for the better are possible” I keep waiting for the “but” part. And you know what they say about the “but” part.  Everything before “but” is a lie.

„Veränderungen zum Guten sind möglich.”

PS: Happy New Year anyway!

German Of The Day: Rekordhöhe

December 27, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means record level. As in record level of German weapons sales.

Record

The federal government has authorized a record level of weapons exports. The number of export permits for armaments reached a new record high. Compared to the previous year, there was an increase of at least 65 percent for 2019.

Bundesregierung genehmigt Rüstungsexporte in Rekordhöhe – Die Zahl der Exportgenehmigungen für Rüstungsgüter hat einen neuen Höchststand erreicht. Im Vergleich zum Vorjahr gab es 2019 eine Steigerung von mindestens 65 Prozent.

German Of The Day: Fachkräftemangel

December 15, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means a shortage of skilled specialists.

Skills

And Angela Merkel HERSELF has warned Germans of a possible exodus of businesses from Germany if nothing is done about this acute problem.

Doesn’t really make sense, though. She brought around two million skilled specialists into the country not all too long ago, or at least that’s how the German media and others painted it. And some 200,000 skilled specialists keep pouring into Germany each and every year. Surely there must be some misunderstanding here somewhere, some disconnect.

Weil kein qualifiziertes Personal gefunden wird, bleiben viele Stellen in deutschen Betrieben unbesetzt. Die Kanzlerin fordert eine Lösung für den Fachkräftemangel. Ansonsten drohten drastische Folgen.

German Of The Day: Transaktionssteuer

December 11, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means financial transactions tax.

Tax

And that means, as usual, taxing the little guy tying to get ahead while letting the big time speculators off the hook. All in the name of Social Justice. Or Social Democracy (SPD), if you prefer.

Germany Pushes Forward on European Financial Transactions Tax – Under a new blueprint for the tax, sent by Germany Finance Minister Olaf Scholz to the other governments on Monday and seen by The Wall Street Journal, anyone buying shares in large companies domiciled in those countries and with a market value of over €1 billion ($1.1 billion) will have to pay a minimum 0.2% tax over the transaction value…

Germany is under some time pressure to deliver an agreement since the government has already earmarked the expected proceeds to pay for higher state pensions for the poor starting in 2021. It expects revenues of about €1.5 billion a year from the tax.

Germans have more words for taxation than Eskimos have for snow.

German Of The Day: Abschwung

December 6, 2019 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means downturn.

Downturn

German industry hit by biggest downturn since 2009 – Output falls 5.3% in year to October, weighing on eurozone growth outlook.

Germany’s sprawling industrial sector is suffering its steepest downturn for a decade, underlining how the engine of the eurozone’s biggest economy is sputtering.

In der deutschen Industrie geht der Abschwung mit einem schwachen Start ins vierte Quartal weiter. Im Oktober haben die Betriebe ihre Gesamtproduktion erneut deutlich zurückgefahren.

 

German Of The Day: Wrack

December 5, 2019 By in Hard Facts, Hi-tech, History Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means wreck. No, not a wreck like the SPD. One like the battleship SMS Scharnhorst.

Scharnhorst

The wreckage of a World War I German armoured battlecruiser has been discovered off the coast of the Falkland Islands.

The SMS Scharnhorst, the flagship of Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron, was sunk on 8 December 1914 during the Battle of the Falkland Islands, a crucial naval battle in the early days of the First World War.

The discovery is a major breakthrough in the quest to locate all of the German squadron’s ships lost during the battle.

“Suddenly she just came out of the gloom with great guns poking in every direction.”