Archive of Linguistically Captivating

Indifference. A term every political economics student is ranting and raving about. When an individual is indifferent about option A or B, then he/she values both equally and thus considers them as good or as bad as the other.

Meh Magazine. Go buy it or don't... Whatever. I dont care. *Shrugs*. · by shammonds on flickr.com

Meh is the more casual term for it and I wish I could have “Meh” go mainstream in German as well. I’m working on it. philafication.com proudly presents the word of all-time:

Expression: Meh
A word used to show indifference.
Example: “Barack Obama, you are the first Black president, do you think you are ready to take office?”
“Meh.”

It’s basically a short version, and thus is ideal for text lingo, for I couldn’t care less about it. The German language lacks an equivalent of equal efficiency and thus needs to adapt the English. Resistance is futile.

The image attached shows the Face of Meh. On Meh Magazine. Get it at the newspaper stand near you or don’t… whatever. For only 1.50 I guess.

I’m sure you’ve seen me make that kind of face once or twice.

Here’s some German expressions that’s worth mentioning in this compelling case of Lingo Bingo…

• Das juckt mich nicht.
• Das kratzt mich nicht.
• Das tangiert mich perifär.

Presented as a vid-ucate (short for video and education -- now did I scare you to finish the entry?) the following video provides you with valuable lessons on body language in terms of vocabulary, grammar and semantics.

Now I’d like to give you a quick overview of my favorite non-verbal expression used on a daily basis.

“In a turtle like reaction of humiliation, the shoulders raise withdrawing the head, the place of knowing. The mouth pulls to the side. Indicating I have nothing to say because my speaking *** (orafus? I didn’t get that one) is distorted”.

The compound phrase shown in the video says I can’t speak of anything from the place of knowing. Simply translated into I -- don -- no. 

Displaying non-knowledge can get you out of a lot of uncomfortable situations. But who am I telling this. No offense. The general rule is: Knowing too much can hurt. Both mentally (common appearance: headaches) and physically (bad guys beating the crap out of you because you know something about that mafia guy). Yet not knowing can cost -- even if it’s only opportunity costs -- you one heck of a lot (like not knowing the right combination for Wednesday’s lottery). Then you might want to use the following expression…

Here the arms are launched upwards symbolizing the jetatizing (?!) of invisible representations of self. Belief systems, expectations et cetera. [...] The lips begin to form the letter F, in an example of non-non-verbal translinguistic communications.

Those scientific terms can be translated as: I -- am -- angry.

More videos containing comedy can be found over at mitchellrose.com!

(via swissmiss)

When you first start out in the beginner phase, you can only say things like “Ick heisse John. Ick kann sprecken Deutsch.” At this point you sound like a moron, but as your German improves to the point where you can talk about the weather, your credibility as an intelligent human sky rockets and peaks at the point where you realize that when you look up words in the German/English dictionary you shouldn’t always pick the one that sounds just like English because it shares a Latin root. [...]

Nothing for Ungood, an expatriate blog “poking a little fun at life in Germany from an American perspective”, gives us a detailed overview of how English speakers advance from the “you sound like a moron” level of German speaking skills to a rather sophisticated one where you know how to juggle your sausage/pig references in routine conversations.

Definitely a good read and worth checking out during the slump season at philafication.com (due to a examination week coming up next week)… Sorry for that.

I had great pleasure in editing this slang business letter (It’s linguistically captivating isn’t it?) and transform it into beautiful EBC 1 high-register kind of language. See for yourself. This is not how you want to write business letters and to be successful i simultaneously.

Hey dude, outta stocks. Sorry. Big time.

Whereas English has taken over a large proportion of “the language of choice” for most blog entries, we all know that I speak both German (mother tongue) and English (as a second language). I cause a load of hits on online dictionaries pages since I can’t always stand vague interpretations by me, myself and I.

In beta.

My “dictionary of choice” has been dict.leo.org for quite a while. Also I used to look up words on pons.de a long time ago, but I was really not enjoying the user experience.

But what do I find out now? Pons was entirely overhauled and revealed a new approach to online dictionary (compared to the sloppy thing they had before). Now,pons.eu/dict/search(in Beta status, how trendy of them) offers registered-user only suggestions and contributions,pronunciation assistance (mp3 format) and a unique display of words that groups results according to their meaning (something I definitely miss on dict.leo.org).

I can’t wait to check out the new old kid on the block* and see how it will fit my daily use with looking up words. Is it going to replace dict.leo.org? I’m undecided, but really attracted…

*Mini Lingo Bingo: The new kid on the block is a phrase to describe someone who has just appeared or is new. It is not only used for new people entering a social circle, often used in context with a company entered a new market. The german equivalent is “der/die Neue sein.” An example: Google’s Gear browser solution is the new kid on the block and will be tested really hard. – Google’s Gear Internetbrowser ist der Neue und wird hart beurteilt werden.

Leider ist die Maklersprache wissenschaftlich noch kaum erforscht. Sie dürfte sich aber doch im Euphemismus-Grad von der allgemeinen Verkäufersprache etwas abheben. Mit ein wenig Routine lassen sich Systeme erkennen: “absolute Ruhe” bezeichnet meist einen Ort, an dem einander Fuchs und Hase Gute Nacht sagen. “Lebendige Atmosphäre” in einer “aufstrebenden Gegend” könnte Stress und Baulärm bedeuten, und “charmante”, “individuelle” Objekte ziehen ihren Charme eben häufig daraus, dass sie eben nicht für jedermann auf den ersten Blick interessant sind.

fm4.ORF.at / Wörterbuch Maklerdeutsch – Deutsch.

For all my German speaking readers who also suffer from lingual gaps between “Malkerdeutsch” (real estate agent German) and German. Worth a read!

To who it may concern:

You get a 5- according to the strict grading (defined by an action of passive-aggressiveness) of person A who could not stand the orthography of person B who obviously got desperate over the empty toilet covers that it forgot how to spell. Really desperate. That’s called desperillite. A hybrid of desperate and illiterate. Usually happens when people are angry at something and as aconsequencefeel like leaving behind a message.

Minus Five or Five Minus (depends on how you look at it), that is pretty much the worst you could ever do in a test in Austria. What an accomplishment, but see for yourself…

Lehr, bitte fülen, danke. That's really German spelling at its worst. "Empty, please fill up, thanks" · Plus, I also took this picture with my cell but I figured I want the picture to look even more pixly than it actually is. Just to poke fun at cell phone cameras...

Oh, Toilet Stories. I simply love them.

It gets even better. You know, sometimes life is full of colorful moments as follows. I was in the bathroom and nearly burst into tears reading this “interesting” approach to German spelling. The guy in the cabin next to me gave me weird looks when I flushed and opened the cabin door and he was about to askstupid questions. Why? It’s very awkward to get prompted to explain yourself in situations like that… First the sound of my camera going “click” (it was not supposed to do that since I put it on silent) followed by a really evil giggle. In a toilet cabin. Weiiiird. I just went on and laughed even harder. Oh toilet stories.
Do you also come across with weird moments like that? Is your life defined by awkward moments? Tell me your stories.

Myassociationwith the attached picture explained as follows: “Ozapft is” is German dialect (Bavarian) for “es ist angezapft” meaning you just tapped a keg of beer. Phonetic pronunciation help should look like this: awww-ts-uh-pft-e-s. Thus this is the ultimate motto for the Oktoberfest (no need to explain that, right? I saw Oktoberfest Sausages at Costco)I figured this little bit of information qualifies for a schnelles (quick) Lingo Bingo and blends in with my sharing thoughts on the internet.

Information Hydrant · photo by Will Lion on flickr.com