Thread by @fMRI_guy

Alright, as inspired by @artologica and encouraged by @snapdragon830:

1 like = 1 unusual German word or phrase

(I might go slow, as I want to make them as interesting as possible, and I’ll try not to recycle ones that I’ve already posted about on other occasions)

https://twitter.com/artologica/status/1089312647798054913

1) “vom Leder ziehen”: to loudly complain about something or rip somebody a new one — literally “to pull out of the leather” in reference to pulling a gun from its holster

2) “shade” and “shadow” are not distinguished in the German language, making me sound very weird when I mix them up (honestly I just use “shadow” 100% of the time)

3) the most common way to say “let someone down” is “im Stich lassen”, which means “leave them in the sting” and is derived from medieval warfare or jousting; ie you didn’t pull them away before they got stung

4) another very common medieval term: most popular way to say that someone has a hidden agenda is “im Schild führen“, or carrying something hidden in your shield

5) a common syllable/suffix in German is “Zeug”, mostly meaning “thing” or “stuff”. If you use it for “driving thing”, “flying thing”, “fire thing”, you end up with the German words for car, plane, lighter: Fahrzeug, Flugzeug, Feuerzeug

6) Similarly, the suffix Stoff can denote “stuff” or “matter”. Many basic elements are named after what they’re doing in the lab: Wasserstoff (water stuff = hydrogen) makes water. Stickstoff (choke stuff = nitrogen) snuffs out a flame.

7) German names for chess pieces are fun: pawn is Bauer (farmer). Bishop is Läufer (runner/walker). Knight is Springer (jumper). Castle is Turm (tower/turret). King is still König and Queen is Dame (lady)

8) the proper translation of hospital is still Krankenhaus, or “sick house”. The same word pops up in the translation of “health care provider” (Krankenkasse) and you can see how some marketing departments are desperately trying to change that.

9) a common term for “mayhem” or “chaos” is “Tohuwabohu”, which is an approximation of the Hebrew words describing the condition of the world at the beginning of the book of Genesis

10) the company Vicks operates under the name Wick in Germany. Because, um, in German, saying “Vicks” sounds exactly like you’re telling someone to go masturbate. #NotKidding

11) the German for parrot is “Papagei”, although my daughter prefers calling them “paprika”

12) my favorite (pretty harmless) German insult is “Armleuchter”, which I believe is some sort of lamp. No idea why it’s used as an insult. A current insult popular with kids is “Lauch”, which means leek.

13) germans are aware that some of our chain word creations are weird. A common way to ridicule them is to say „Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitänsmütze“, or „hat of the captain of a steam ship on the Danube“

14) a well-known German laundry detergent is named “Ariel”. Consequently, the Disney princess is named “Arielle” in Germany.

15) there is no distinction between “ape” and “monkey” in German, except if you use Menschenaffe (“human-monkey”) for ape.

16) colloquial terms for a condom in German are Pariser (Parisian — no idea why) or my favorite Verhüterli, which would translate to something like „Contracepterino“

17) German doesn’t distinguish between “dice” and “cube” — both are “Würfel”, which is the same for both singular and plural. #SimplifyYourLanguage

18) early books used to be giant tomes with heavy covers, closing with a clasp. Quickest way to open them was often to just slam them with your hand. The common way to say “open a book” in German is still “aufschlagen“, or to hit open.

19) post-medieval times saw the emergence of Rotwelsch, which was a sort of pidgin German used as a crypolect by different groups, incl criminals. Their word Kohldampf (“cole steam”), meaning hunger, is still commonly used today.

20) germans use the English word “Handy” for mobile phones. They also use “Showmaster” for the host of a TV show.
Most Germans assume that both words are commonly used that way by English speakers, often leading to confusion.

21) common German ways to express that you just don’t care are “es ist mir Wurst” (it is sausage to me) or “es juckt mich nicht” (it doesn’t give me an itch)

22) if you’re on the wrong track somehow, you’re on the Holzweg (timber path). This idiom exists because woodworkers used to cut paths into the forest to gather wood, until they’d stop. If you accidentally followed the path, you’d end up at a dead end in the middle of the forest.

23) one thing about German that I never quite understood is that “united” can be “vereint” or “vereinigt”. Consequently, it’s “Vereinte Nationen”, but “Vereinigte Staaten”

24) it’s true that Kennedy’s “ich bin ein Berliner” means “I’m a jelly-filled donut”. However, he didn’t make a mistake saying it, it’s still correct. The situation is a bit like someone saying “I’m a New Yorker” and then people saying “haha he said he’s a monthly magazine”

25) one idiom that I keep using in English even though nobody knows what I mean: standing on the hose (auf dem Schlauch stehen): Being puzzled to a degree that makes you wonder if the problem is really you — like wondering why no water is coming from the hose while standing on it

26) another useful idiom: the sparrow of Ulm (Ulmer Spatz). This proverbial bird tries to put a long stick through a narrow hole and doesn’t get the idea of putting it in length-wise. Useful phrase for when you’re stumped by a simple problem.

27) “den Löffel abgeben”, to turn in the spoon, is a grim idiom with a sweet backstory: godparents used to give their godchildren a nice spoon as a symbol for them always having a seat at their table. You keep it until you’re dead, so “turning in the spoon” = “buying the farm”

28) and while we’re at it, “biting the dust” is “biting the grass”, for some reason (ins Gras beißen)

29) the German word for eyeglasses is “Brille”, which is derived from beryllium, out of which early eyeglasses were manufactured.

30) this one seems to amuse many Americans: polar bear in German is Eisbär, pronounced “ice bear”.
Similarly straightforward is the word for raccoon: Waschbär, because they wash their food.

31) as @ATinyGremlin just pointed out: a glove in German is a Handschuh — quite simply a shoe for your hand.

32) some of the longest official German words can be found in legal texts, e.g. #Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (regulation for the transfer of monitoring tasks regarding the labeling of beef)

33) in the area of southern Germany where I’m from, the word “leg(s)” is almost never used, with “foot/feet” being used instead. This often confuses visitors. A phrase that I’ve heard myself once was “look at her, she has feet that won’t stop” (Füße bis zum Hals)

34) German doesn’t distinguish between dough and batter (both are Teig) — it’s another thing where I’m hopelessly lost in English and just use one for everything.

35) anatomy terms are much less Latinized than they are in English. Sternum is just breast bone (Brustbein). This can make it less complicated — or more so, as in the case of sinuses (Nasennebenhöhlen, or nose-adjacent cavities)

36) A common way to say something is dull or mundane is “null acht fünfzehn” (zero eight fifteen). That’s the designation of the WWI rifle pictured here. It may have been considered low quality, or its instructions may have become too much of a routine — etymology is not clear.

37) German word for pain is “Schmerz”. English-speakers might recognize it from the medical term for mid cycle pain (Mittelschmerz) or the cartoon villain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (“silly pain”)

38) the regions of Germany that are close to France have some fun idioms: “trott-war” is often used for sidewalk (after French “trottoir”), and shenanigans are often called Fisimatenten (from “vistez ma tente”, an invitation to uncouth activities in a tent). Apparently the latter

etymology has been challenged (it might be derived from a Latin phrase for a type of patent instead), but at least for the local people the tent thing seems to be the origin of the phrase. So take that one with a grain of salt, I guess (what a great English idiom that is)

39) “Böhmische Dörfer“ (Bohemian towns/villages) is a term for something that’s impossible to understand. That’s because you could travel to the cities of Bohemia from Germany and speak German there, but the rural population spoke Czech as the kingdom was built on Czech territory

40) some German phrases are puzzling until you realize that Kirche (church) used to mean not the building, but the community. E.g.: mit der Kirche ums Dorf gehen (taking the church for a walk around the town) = making something needlessly complicated.

41) As inspired by @mathiaseichler: die eierlegende Wollmilchsau, or the egg-laying wool-milk-sow, is a term for a one-size-fits-all multi-purpose solution. Often used negative, in the sense of “you’re not looking for something real, you want an eierlegende Wollmilchsau”

Since we’re at 42) now: Anhalter (stopper) is the German word for a hitchhiker. There’s also a royal family and a region named Anhalt, but I assume that’s a coincidence. #PerAnhalterDurchDieGalaxis

43) the vast majority of video game titles remain English on the German market (mostly because it sounds cooler to younger Germans). Exception: LucasArts’ “Full Throttle” was changed to “Vollgas”, as it sounds like “Volltrottel” (giant moron)

44) Persilschein is a funny one: Persil is a popular laundry detergent. Used to be when you got your draft papers you had to bring a carton to ship your civil clothes back home. Many soldiers appeared with Persil cartons & draft papers came to be known as “Persil slip”. BUT:

After WWII, a big question was who was a hardcore Nazi and who just acted like one to stay safe. Accordingly, many Germans wrote testimonies about people they knew, attesting to their democratic, non-Nazi beliefs. Those letters were then *also* known as Persilschein.

45) What makes this image fun to Germans is that “Pups” (pronounced “poops”) is a cutesy way to describe flatulence.

46) “Hosenladen” can mean both “pants store” and “zipper fly”. I once saw a (humorous/sarcastic) store sign that said “Our Hosenladen is open on Sunday”

47) “balls” is never used for testicles in German (Eier = eggs is used instead). But many Germans assume that scoops of ice cream are called “balls” in English. Hilarity often ensues. #IWouldLikeThreeBallsPlease

(Also German ice cream scoops are on average much smaller than those that are common in the US, but I don’t know if there’s any relation to average testicle size)

48) sci-fi translators often just read the written words out loud to make them sound familiar to German ears. Jedi is spoken “yay-dee” in German. That’s good strategy because e.g. the Star Trek vacation planet Risa (spoken “Ree-za” in German) is named after the German word Reise.

49) not sure if that also exists in English, but a Milchmädchenrechnung (milk maid’s calculation) is when you think through a thing in a way that has you come out on top — basically the most beneficial (to yourself) interpretation of something, bordering on foolishness.

50) any disease that killed someone slowly used to be called Sucht in earlier times (from siechen = to suffer). Today it’s used as the common German word for addiction.

51) the opposite, ie a disease that kills quickly, was called a Schlag (hit/punch). That term is still commonly used for stroke.

my mentions have gone bananas because of this thread, so I apologize if I miss something.

Incidentally, 52) if something is “Banane” in German, that means it doesn’t matter.

53) when hand manufacturing a shoe, it looks like a formless glob of leather up until the last step (turning it inside out). The phrase “so wird ein Schuh draus” (that’s how it turns into a shoe) is used when something suddenly makes sense.

54) Stammtisch (stem-table or trunk-table) is a term for the table at the bar that you regularly meet up with your friends at. It’s often considered more of a guy thing, and “Stammtisch talk” has the same connotation as “locker room talk” in English.

55) the German expression for a staycation is Balkonien, as in “the furthest we’re gonna travel this summer is Balconia”

56) this is a Hampelmann (goofing-around man). If you pull the string it starts dancing. Wonderful insult for someone who’s uselessly jumping around, or who’s following someone else’s string-pulling.

57) “Fest” can mean both “festival” or “firm”/“sturdy”. So while Stadtfest (city fest) would be a kind of festivity, wasserfest means “waterproof”. It’s all about the context.

58) Most names of the day of the week have the same origin in German as in English (Freitag = Friday and such). However, for hump day Germans did away with the divine origin of the name and just call it Mittwoch (mid-week).

59) since @HubsPhD brought it up: Schwalbe, which means swallow (the bird, not the throat movement), is the German term for a soccer/football player gracefully sailing through the air and/or rolling around on the grass as the result of a bad collision that never actually happened

60) German doesn’t distinguish between poison and venom.
That makes things less confusing.
But: the word for both of these things is “Gift”.
That makes things more confusing.

61) the German term for wolverine is Vielfraß (“much-eater”). Unsurprisingly, the superhero of the same name is still called “Wolverine” in Germany.

62) A common term for a fool is Depp.
Yes, I have seen the phrase “Johnny der Depp” in movie reviews.

63) Eselsbrücke, or donkey bridge, is a term for something that helps you remember something (like Roy G. Biv to remember the order of colors in the rainbow). Presumably it’s because donkeys don’t like to go through water, so travelers would construct small, non-permanent bridges

64) speaking of which: Drahtesel, or wire-donkey, is a German term for a bicycle. The proper term is the more boring Fahrrad (driving-wheel)

65) a term for a freeloader is Trittbrettfahrer, literally translated as someone who rides along standing on the little step on the outside of a train.

66) “science” in German is the somewhat clunky “Wissenschaft” (literally “knowledge-creates”).
But hey, at least this way we avoid the fact that the word “science” has the same origin as the word “shit”, so we got that going for us.

67) you may already know about this one — this is a legit name for a beer, consisting of its place of origin (a town in Austria) and the type of beer (“hell” meaning light in color, as opposed to a dark beer)

68) In the German language, numbers are being said the other way around — so the number sixty-eight would be eight-and-sixty (achtundsechzig). It’s only for two digits, though — 312,168 for example would still be read left-to-right, until you reach the last two.

69) If your lunch place has one of those fancy new soft drink machines where you can mix 100+ flavors, try mixing Coke with Fanta Orange (in about equal volumes). You've just created Spezi, a popular soft drink in Germany. The word is also used to mean "buddy" in some regions.

70) Feels like a cheat to include someone else's tweet here, but this deserves a mention (also I still have 500+ to go, so EXCUSE ME):
the word KINDERBEREICH means "kids area". Segmenting it into KIND ERBE REICH turns the meaning into "kid, inherit rich!"

https://twitter.com/Rutzel21/status/1089924992190566401

71) Yeees, as @Julie_B92 points out: as a 'neutral' term for sex (equivalent to 'intercourse') German uses Verkehr, which is the same word as the one for 'traffic' (or, if you want to be specific, Geschlechtsverkehr, which would be 'sex traffic').

(Germans are aware of this weird confluence, and there's even a song full of traffic/sex innuendo. The gist of it is that you should use protection and follow the rules in both scenarios. It also features the term Verhüterli mentioned above)

72) Early transmitters generated radio waves via an electric spark, and early operators were nicknamed “sparks”. The connection remains more direct in German, where “Funke” means spark and “Funk” means radio (although “Radio” is also used, especially for commercial stations)

73) German scientist W.C. Röntgen discovered a super cool new piece of tech that had a lot of people excited. In his honor, Germans call his discovery Röntgenstrahlen (Röntgen rays). The rest of the world uses the more flashy name that he came up with himself: X-Strahlen (X-rays)

74) Since the term has just been used by a German politician (pic via @tagesschau): Verschlimmbessern (literally ~ improveworsening), or kaputtsanieren, means making something worse by trying to improve it

75) "Fratze" used to be a term for making a face -- nowadays it's used to denote an ugly or bizarre face (such as "the Fratze of today's politics"). If someone got into a bad fight, the result can be Fratzengulasch (i.e., their mug has been somewhat stirred around and rearranged)

76) As @sourbeerdough has brought up: "über den (eigenen) Schatten springen", or to jump over your (own) shadow, means to do something that you wouldn't normally do. It's often used as a form of encouragement, like to give yourself a push

77) Ah yes, another suggestion by @sourbeerdough: "bekommen" is German for "to get/receive" and is commonly used as an expression for "I'll have X" in a restaurant. So it's not terribly unusual for a German to be eating out abroad and saying "Waiter, I become the steak"

78) As a not-on-Twitter-friend has suggested: "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche", or "sugar bread and whip" is an expression for using both reward and punishment.

79) Suggested by @MiMrMa: there used to be the word "fuchswild" (fox wild), either derived from rabid foxes or from, uhm, another word (you know which one).
Either way it was later extended to fuchsteufelswild (fox devil wild) & is used like that today to mean "livid" or "angry"

80) Suggested by @DennisEckmeier: A Luftschloss, or air castle, is an unrealistic notion or plan. ("You're just building Luftschlösser here, nothing else").

81) "Sky" and "Heaven" are not distinguished in German -- both are "Himmel". If you want to specify you can use "Himmelreich" for the Heavenly realms.

82) Another suggestion by @MiMrMa: the German term "Geist" combines the concepts of mind, spirit, and soul. And also means "ghost".
To figure this one out from context, you'll need to open your mind, or as they say in the German-dubbed Total Recall: "Öffnen Sie Ihren Geist"

83) Suggested by @Prof_Manhattan: Blitzbirne (Blitz = lightning/flash, Birne = pear or bulb) is someone who's not very smart. I'm not sure about the etymology (probably just because it's sarcastic), but it's notable that it's also a term for a flash bulb for photography.

84) It's also noteworthy that some words (like Blitz) that you might think are WWII-specific are actually used normally and in a wide variety of contexts in German: 'Führer' just means leader or captain. 'Lebensraum' is a habitat. 'Reich' is kingdom or realm.

85) To keep it militaristic: @Calorin10 suggests Bombenwetter (bomb weather): not sure where this term for fantastic weather comes from: internet suggests it's because bombers need good weather for good sight; but plenty other 'bomb' terms exist (incl. Sexbombe, as in English)

86) As @indianalytics pointed out: Weizen is wheat, but also short for wheat beer. Korn is cereal/grain, but also short for grain schnapps. They do have different genders though; so "das Weizen & das Korn" means work, while "der Weizen & der Korn" means fun.

87) True -- as @David_Eisler says, the German Fingerhut (finger hat) is a lot cooler than the English 'thimble'

88) The German for mannequin is the refreshingly straightforward ‘Schaufensterpuppe’: display-window doll

89) Suggested by my wife: there is no proper translation for 'cereal' as a prepared food item. Colloquially people often say "Cornflakes". Some companies have started calling them "Cerealien" in German, which is also the name of a festival for the Roman goddess of agriculture.

90) Another suggestion from my wife: poppen is a cutesy way of describing intercourse. Note that pop music is still called the same thing in German. As well as the pop filter for a mic (=Popschutz). And yes, there's at least 1 song that uses a mic's Popschutz as a pun for condom.

91) To words you might find interesting: Stehrumchen (stand-around-thingy) is a term for something in your apartment that serves no real purpose. The more negative version of this is Verstäubchen (getting-dusty-thingy)

92) As brought up by @BorisBarbour and @Spatzlhirn: some nice, similar sayings from Germany:
Das Leben ist so kurz und man ist so lange tot (Life's so short and then you're dead for so long)
Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot (he who dies earlier is dead longer)

93) I guess/hope we have about one more day before Howard Schultz will thankfully drop out of politics again, so let me use this opportunity to mention that his last name is derived from 'Schultheiss'; a term for the head of a municipality (akin to a mayor) or executive official.

94) As inspired by @zakkinen: "dicke Luft" (thick air) is a term for a tense or bad atmosphere, up to and including an actual fight/conflict. I don't know the etymology but the internet thinks it might be WWI-related. Antonym: "die Luft is rein" = the air is clear.

95) German has a neat one-syllable term for medical doctor: Arzt.
You might remember a minor lost character Dr. Arzt who insisted on his doctorate — that was an in-joke. It’s also the name of one of Germany’s best bands: Die Ärzte (the doctors/practitioners)

96) Suggested by @zakkinen: Fersengeld geben, literally “paying heel money”, means running really fast (usually running away from something). Similar: Beine in die Hand nehmen (literally “grabbing your legs” or “taking your legs into your hands”)

97) A fun multi-purpose word is ‘Zoll’: it’s the common German term for customs, it can be used the same way as “toll” (like for a bridge toll) and it’s the translation for “inch” if you’re too lazy to say “2.5 centimeters”

98) Falling asleep is “einschlafen” or, literally, “sleeping in”.

Sleeping in is “ausschlafen” or, literally, “sleeping out”

99) „Heiliger Bimbam“ (approx. pronounced HIGH-ligguh BIMM-bum) is the German equivalent of “holy moly”

100) for the longest time, Germany was a collection of many different tribes. Many languages still name one of them to refer to the country (“Germans”, “Allemans”). Its native name Deutschland instead refers to the common language that distinguished Germans from their neighbors.

101) the German for bagpipes is ‘Dudelsack’. To quote @sciencebanshee:

As a piper, it's just so perfect and literal-sounding. "What's this, you ask? This here is a bag that doodles come out of!"

102) A sloth in German is called Faultier, or very literally “Lazy-animal”

103) German equivalents of “hubbub” are “Remmidemmi” or “Rambazamba”

104) suggested by @MiMrMa: “die Arschkarte ziehen”, or drawing the butt card, means suffering the consequences of having bad luck (or of screwing up). Legend has it that the term is derived from soccer, where the more severe penalty card is kept in the referee’s back pocket.

105) suggested by @tanja_gb: several fun translations for throwing a tantrum: Theater machen (making theater), einen Zirkus machen (making a circus)

106) a phrase that is often very useful: “den Bock zum Gärtner machen“ (turning the goat into the gardener): transferring tasks to someone inept so that the end result is a big giant Kuddelmuddel

107) and, as you might have guessed, “Kuddelmuddel” is a cutesy way to say clusterf*** (or at least to describe a state of confusion). A similar term that can be used in the same way is Wirrwarr (related to Verwirrung = confusion)

108) suggested by @mycrowgirl: “geil” literally means “horny” but is commonly used as “awesome” (probably via using the word to call someone hot. I guess). The more intense form would be “affengeil”, aka horny as a monkey.

109) another good one from @mycrowgirl: Something being “der Hammer” (yes, it just means “the hammer”) can also be used as “awesome”. In fact, that’s how they translated the many “awesome”s uttered in How I Met Your Mother

110) German fairy tales are expectedly a tad more straightforward: “once upon a time” is “Es war einmal” (lit. “It used to be”) and “happily ever after” is “und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute” (“if they haven’t died, they’re still alive today”)

That last one was inspired by @indik. there’s at least 1 fairy tale related translation that’s more romantic in German:
“Tale as old as time, Song as old as rhyme” = “Märchen schreibt die Zeit, in des Dichters Kleid” (lit. fairytales are written by time, in the guise of the poet)

111) if a German-speaker tries their hand at English & says “...or?” at the end of a phrase, it’s because the German “oder?” is used the same way as “isn’t it?” Saying it in English often leaves Germans confused because there u need to adapt it to the sentence (“didn’t they” etc)

112) “des Pudels Kern” (the poodle’s core), meaning the heart of the matter, goes back to the literary works of Goethe. His character Faust meets a random poodle that quickly turns out to be the devil in disguise.

113) the German mythical creature with the cutest name is the Tatzelwurm (~ worm with little paws). The legend may have been inspired by reports of the existence of Gila monsters in the New World (cc @gilamonsterasu)

114) suggested by a friend: ein Fass aufmachen (to open/tap a keg) means making a big fuzz about something. Could be positive ("this Friday night we'll open a giant keg!") or negative ("let's not open a keg over this").

115) suggested by @masterwahnsinn: Erbsenzähler, literally pea-counter, is a term for someone who’s pedantic. It used to mean stingy; for this, a local variant is Entenklemmer (duck-pincher), inspired by people checking if a duck is carrying an egg (= more value) before buying it

116) as @mycrowgirl says: the most common term for the @ symbol in German is Klammeraffe, which is the German name for spider monkeys, but literally means “clinging monkey”

117) the German equivalent of ‘Average Joe’ is ‘Otto Normalverbraucher’ (literally Otto Regular-Consumer)

118) since German doesn’t have the rhetorical figure where you say ‘Lord Almighty’ to mean ‘the almighty Lord’, the translators of the ‘Bruce Almighty’ films foolishly translated the title as if it was his last name (“Bruce Allmächtig”)

119) “Brat mir einen Storch“ / “Da brat mir einer einen Storch”, or “(someone go and) fry me a stork”, is an exclamation of astonishment similar to “well butter my butt and call me a biscuit”

120) The German name for the game "Musical chairs" is "Reise nach Jerusalem" (traveling to Jerusalem). It's unclear why but it could have been that it was used as a way to identify spies in a traveling army: at a signal, everyone rushes to their tent. The spy is left without one.

121) German media are much more lenient regarding depictions of nakedness/sex than US media, but much stricter regarding violent content. In an extreme example, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles löst their ninja-ness in Germany (and parts of Europe) movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=…

(Not sure how that umlaut got into that tweet — I guess this thread is getting more German the further we get)

122) I’m afraid I’ve forgot who it was that suggested this one (apologies), but this is an (Eierschalen-) Sollbruchstellenerzeuger (literally: egg-shell designated-break-point creator). The metal sphere plops onto an egg and creates a weak spot in the shell.

123) A great German term for a mullet (the hairstyle) is Vokuhila, composed of the first syllables of “vorne kurz hinten lang” (“front short back long”)

124) Most Simpsons character names remain untranslated in the German-dubbed version of the show (it helps that 'clown' is still 'Clown' in German). But the name of Sideshow Bob is (correctly) translated into the arguably much funnier name Tingeltangel-Bob.

125) A common translation of “cannonball” (the jump) is “Arschbombe” (ass bomb).
A common translation of a wedgie is “Arsch frisst Hose” (ass eats pants).

126) As suggested by @zakkinen:

Umfahren (emphasis on 2nd syllable) means driving around something.

Umfahren (emphasis on 1st syllable) means driving over something.

You’ve read that right.

127) For “ventriloquist”, German just uses a literal translation of the term: “Bauchredner”, or “stomach-talker”

128) “Pfeife” (whistle/fife) is a common way to call someone foolish or incompetent, probably because whistles are hollow. In accordance, “Hohlkopf” (hollow-head) is also used. “Flitzpiepe”, suggested by @DennisEckmeier, is a type of a whistle and makes for a fun harmless insult.

Quick follow-up for the people who were amused by the German word Handschuh (hand-shoe aka glove): obviously, German uses that same word for glove, mitten, and yes, even all-powerful gauntlets. #InfinityHandschuh

129) I’ve come up wirh a German variant of the “one egg is an oeuf” joke:

Why do intersections in Germany only have a single traffic light, and only for one of the intersecting roads?

Because in German, one traffic light is Ampel.

130) Feeling a bit “durch den Wind” today (literally “through the wind”, a term for a sail that has lost its wind and is uselessly flapping around), which describes a state of exhaustion and confusion, similar (but I think not identical) to “under the weather”

131) The English term “jackalope” is pretty straightforward— a mythical mix of jackrabbit & antelope. German culture has similar creatures, but they’re called “Wolpertinger”. Probably because the alternative name “Hirschbockbirkfuchsauergams” never really caught on.

132) “wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing” (whose bread I eat is whose song I sing) is a way to describe how opinions might change based on who is financing the opinions-haver. The phrase has been around at least since the 11th century.

133) Similarly, “sein Fähnchen nach dem Wind hängen”, or hanging your flag according to how the wind blows, means you might just be a little too eager to conform to the opinions of others.

134) Two jovial ways to say that something fits or works out very well: "passt wie die Faust aufs Auge" (fits like a fist fits onto an eye) and "passt wie Arsch auf Eimer" (fits like an ass fits onto a bucket)

Yay, only 715 more entries to go! #KermitDerFrosch

135) The German word for clue is "Hinweis", literally "to-there-point". Compare to "Wegweiser" (waymarker / trail sign), which means "way-pointer"

https://twitter.com/HaggardHawks/status/1082292102942330881

136) suggested by @mathiaseichler: Spießrutenlauf (pike run / pike-stick run) is closely related to the English "running the gauntlet": it used to mean a specific punishment/torture, but nowadays means an uncomfortable situation or (perceived) undeserved criticism from many sides

137) “Russian egg” (russisches Ei) is a term for a hard-boiled egg in German.

“Russian egg roulette” is when you have a bowl of eggs, nobody knows which ones are raw and which ones are hard-boiled, and everyone grabs one and breaks it over their own head.

I’ll never understand the people expressing annoyed disbelief when I talk about these terms (“that’s not a real thing” etc).

Don’t you think that if I had made that game up I would just say so? #subtweet

138) “Karacho” is a colloquial term for “oomph” or “speed” (as in “doing something *mit Karacho*”). Spanish-speakers might recognize this as a Germanization of one of their more, um, unfriendly words, and yup that’s probably where this comes from.

139) turtle and tortoise are not distinguished in German (unless you add qualifiers) — both are Schildkröte = “shell toad” / “shield toad”

140) suggested by @indianalytics: Feierabend is a neat term for the time after work (“when is Feierabend?”) and literally translates to something like “celebration evening”

141) Suggested by @DoctorVictoria a month ago (wait - how long have I been doing this?!): most common thing to say as New Year's Eve approaches is "Guten Rutsch [ins neue Jahr]" ("have a good slide [into the new year]"). One theorized origin is the sound of Hebrew 'Rosh Hashanah'

142) A useful word: vorfeiern. It means celebrating something before its time (feiern = celebrate). Example: having a birthday weekend when your bday is next week.
That’s something that’s sort of a taboo in 🇩🇪(believed to bring bad luck) but I’m here in 🇺🇸 so I’ll do it anyway 😉

143) If someone has an Allerweltsgesicht (all-the-world's face) it means their face is generic in a way that makes it easy to confuse them with others.