Google Maps has, I mean.
Sure, Theodor-Heuss-Platz may not exactly roll right off the lips for some of us here but to rename the thing Adolf-Hitler-Platz simply does not solve the problem.
Der Berliner Theodor-Heuss-Platz ist beim Google Kartendienst Maps zeitweise auch als Adolf-Hitler-Platz bezeichnet worden. So hieß der Platz im Bezirk Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in der Nazizeit von 1933 bis 1945.
The language, I mean. “Was Mir Sorgen?” Nice try. But way cool image, I must say.
Well, it is a weird state of affairs when you cannot give away free porn to anonymous people who only visit your site because it has free porn.
Yes it is. But welcome to Germany, sort of. What, me worry (was, ich soll mir Sorgen machen)?
It was originally thought that the letters were sent because of a court error. However, Thomas Urmann of the legal firm U+C told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that they plan to investigate more infringements on porn streaming sites next year, a move that would set a worldwide precedent.
Whoopee or something. Germany’s grand coalition is finally here – a government the Germans didn’t vote for.
GERMANY’S language boffins were first: they coined “GroKo” (short for grand coalition) the German language’s word of the year 2013 (an accolade that is not automatically flattering). To some Germans, this neologism might evoke a “great crocodile” or something otherwise sinister.
What does this really mean? It means that the tail (SPD) has succeeded in wagging the dog (CDU/CSU) and will now force enough of its social democratic agenda (“social” = free lunch) upon the German ship of way-too-big-state to veer it off the proper course, once again. It had been heading, however timidly, toward more private initiative = responsibility and away from your typical German been-there-done-that world of ever more government waste, meddling and control. The CDU/CSU has now become thoroughly social democratized, in other words.
Just like with the “energy turnaround,” everybody will wake up again once they figure out that this is actually going to cost them personally way too much money. Hey, life is a zigzag course. They’ll get back on track again eventually.
PS: Something actually happened on German TV last night that was apparently worth watching.
Zwangs- = compulsory. Umlage = levy, share in the costs. Put those two together and what do you get? Forced to share. But we’re talking about money here folks so let’s just call it another tax and get it over with already.
This latest planned tax consists of forcing German households to purchase so-called “smart meters” or modern electricity meters that are supposed to regulate energy consumption by drawing electricity from that so wonderfully green German energy grid whenever this energy is cheaper. You know, like when hell freezes over?
This will only set back German consumers another 70 or 80 euros after already having been hit with a seven percent energy bill increase planned for next year, too (the seven can and will change, of course, and we all now in which direction it will be going).
Turn it around as much as you want. Anyway you turn this German energy turnaround around, you’ll always get the same result. Once you’ve turned it around, I mean. She is like way too expensive, señor.
But what can you expect from a government that is about to go retro and way back in the Wayback Machine to the good old days of SPD Never-Never Land again?
“Verbraucher sollten mit attraktiven Angeboten überzeugt, statt mit immer mehr ordnungsrechtlichen Einbaupflichten gezwungen werden.”
PS: The next German word of the day will be Abzocke. Here’s a tip: It means rip-off.
German’s a bitch. That’s why German kids are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore and have begun to simplify it by introducing a new form of German that is, well, more like Turkish.
This year’s Langenscheidt-Verlag German youth word winner is “Babo” and is Turkish for boss, sort of.
Other recent not so memorable winners include “Yolo” (2012) for “yolo” and “Swag” (2011) for “swag.” Neither of these have a Turkish connection, however. But they are kind of on the short and sweet side.
Chabos wissen, wer der Babo ist.
Of course non-German speakers can say pretty weird stuff, too.
Now that’s a German word for you. And no, not just because it has Verbot on the end of it, although that certainly helps.
Zweckentfremdung means misappropriation, and in this case the Verbot has to do with using apartments for something they were not meant to be used for; for renting. Well, actually, this particular misappropriation Verbot means renting them at a high rate to those awful and dreadful tourists who come to Berlin for a limited time instead of renting them out for much, much less to people who will be paying that much, much less for a much, much longer time. Which is, uh, better.
You guessed it, we’re back here in Berlin again and trying to rent your property for the most the free market will give you is an absolute sin in these parts and must be stopped immediately. And that’s what the Berlin SPD is now trying to do with this here new-fangled, old school Socialist-type Zweckentfremdungsverbot. And you and I both know that it will be yet another roaring success. Until it backfires and gets quietly repealed a few years down the road again, that is.
Experten setzen große Hoffnungen auf das Verbot. Denn dann sind Vermietungen an Touristen und Firmen künftig nicht mehr möglich.
PS: That picture up there kills me, too. Being willing to pay 500 euros (roughly $675) to someone who finds an apartment for you is considered a complete Skandal here so that’s why “the state” needs to jump in and take those 500 euros from somebody else to pay, so-to-speak, only it will be more like 5000 euros then, which is then OK.
That didn’t take long. After planning to introduce “Herr Professorin” or Mr. Madame Professor at the University of Leipzig for both men and women professors, the FU Berlin is now thinking about doing the same.
Did Delta House dump some LSD in the faculty water cooler over here or something?
“All are equal in Leipzig. All women, that is.”
In Leipzig sind jetzt alle gleich, nämlich Frauen. Professoren gibt’s nicht mehr, nur noch Professorinnen, gemeint bleiben damit natürlich auch noch die männlichen Akademiker, die jedoch nur noch in einer Fußnote erwähnt werden.
If you have your doubts and worries about where your language is going in matters of political correctness, just be glad that you don’t speak German.
Squirming as everyone does these days to find a way to neuter anything and everything that can be neutered because, well, I’m still not quite sure why that is… The University of Leipzig has now made a very important contribution to this valiant endeavor, I think.
In German, calling a man a Professor and a woman a Professorin simply isn’t as geschlechtsneutral (gender-free) as it needs to be in this complex time we live in, it seems. That’s why the head smart folks what’s in charge of proper correct-type language usage here have decided to simply matters drastically. From now on Leipzig professors of either sex will be referred to as “Herr Professorin” or Mr. Madame Professor.
I know, I know. You think that I’m pulling your leg and that this is some kind of a prank or a punk or whatever it is they call it these days, but it isn’t. Honest. It’s here. We’ve come a way long way baby. And this is where we are now.
Mit “Professorin” können somit künftig auch Männer gemeint sein, “Dozentinnen” umfasst sowohl männliche als weibliche Personen.
You already knew that Berlin’s Left had problems with all of those annoying, gentrifying foreign out-of-towners who won’t leave town. Now Ärger (resentment) has broken out with gentrifying German out-of-towners from Swabia (the region around Stuttgart in southwestern Germany) who won’t leave either.
More specifically, “native” Prenzlauer Berg Berliners of the poltically correct kind are pissed off these days about the confusion that reigns whenever they want to order their local breakfast buns in the morning (called Schrippen here). The upwardly mobile Swabians who now live here too prefer calling them by the name they use for them down south in their own neck of the woods: Wecken. And this is just plain wrong. Or something. And an issue. A German issue even. A classic German petty bourgeoisie issue even, even.
In fact, this German petty bourgeoisie issue has become such a German petty bourgeoisie issue that Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) himself felt compelled to note in a recent newspaper interview that “I’m annoyed whenever I go to my local baker and find out that there are no more Schrippen for sale, only Wecken. In Berlin we say Schrippen – and the Swabians ought to get used to that.”
This would be funny except that he meant it. Which makes it funny after all, come to think of it. And I’m not even making this stuff up, people.
“Ich ärgere mich, wenn ich beim Bäcker erfahre, dass es keine Schrippen gibt, sondern Wecken. In Berlin sagt man Schrippen – daran könnten sich selbst Schwaben gewöhnen.”
Observing Hermann 