Hit or shit?
19.01.2009
As regular readers know, I am not one of those people who normally gets upset about the use of English words in German.
"Denglish" is attacked by people who view it as their job to protect the German language, for example, the Verein der deutschen Sprache.
I am deeply suspicious of any organization or individual who wants to tell other people what language they should use. This is the road to authoritarianism, as American author David Mamet said recently in a stimulating speech for the BBC.
The case against using English words in German is very weak. There are basically three arguments, listed by German writing "guru" Wolf Schneider in his latest book:
- We don't need the English words; we have our own.
- English words are ugly when used in German.
- People won't understand the English words.
The first argument is pure nonsense; all languages have synonyms, which often come from different sources. The second argument is a matter of taste; who is to say that a word is not aesthetically pleasing?
The third argument is the only one with any validity. If a word is not understood, it may be a barrier to communication. On the other hand, very few Brits understand the slogan Audi uses in its British advertising: Vorsprung durch Technik — but they know it means "German and therefore bloody good".
One of my favourite German radio stations, Radio Gong 96,3, has a game called Hit oder Shit weekdays mornings at 7.30 on Die Mike Thiel Show. A song is played, and listeners call in to vote "hit" or "shit". Three "hit" votes and the song stays in for another day. Three "shit" votes and the song is played no more. Listeners clearly understand. Simple. Brilliant. English.
On the other hand, if I had a restaurant in a German-speaking country, I would want to avoid any confusion between "hit" and "shit" on my menu. This restaurant in Bregenz clearly didn't think hard enough.
hier: Aufgabe
misstrauisch gegenüber
Argumente
wer darf sich anmaßen, zu behaupten
Gültigkeit, Stichhaltigkeit
Hindernis
Andererseits
ifml. verdammt
Speisekarte
- ‹ previous
- 52 of 310
- next ›
"Will this man get the top job in his country?"
"One word has been following me around the past week."
"I still can't believe that I made such a basic mistake."
"I'd like to tell you what will happen in 2052."
COMMENTS
Love it.... and perhaps the greater exposure to English has sensitised German shopowners to the horrors of a Preishit, which was often slapped onto storefronts. Linguistic purists be damned! There is a limit, of course, and receiving a letter from a client saying: "Ich bin ganz happy mit dem Outcome" is simply unnecessary. Tthough it does say something about the user, namely: he is a young and striving MBA trying hard to be hip in the biz community. Communities use certain languages, classical musicians will chatter about crescendo, rubato and allegro con brio, the ballet dancers have their French, And English is filled with foreign words. And at some point, someone decided to use a Hungarian word to describe a bus, "coach" (from Kócs, where they made carriages). Indeed, language is more than just words.
But the self-appointed deacons of our collective mouths have been vigilantly watching (I suspect only for the past 60 years or so) with hickory raised... Time, I believe, ran an article about it in the early 1970s, commenting on the use of English in French, "franglais", Mitterand banned the use of English on the airwaves, giving rise to such absurd circumlocutions as "musique de campagne" and "herbe bleue". They should take solace at the fact that these have to do with the, how should I say it... zeitgeist.
Besides, language evolves, otherwise we would be grunting at each other. ... Coming to think of it.... maybe we are?!