According to Google maps it takes about 2 days 5 hours to get from NYC to SF.

Major ingredients that contributed to the entire audience bursting into laughters: Troubling confusions with Germans being labeled as Nazis*  upon immigration, the irritatingly vast supermarket allies and corny vomit lines like “Your eyes shine like the stars over <Please Insert State>” used on easy, dull girls in the Midwest of America. Soon they learned that you’re a “Nobody” in the States without “this plastic card you insert in the wall spitting out cash” so they showed movies and sold off fake pieces of the Berlin wall. Guess it’s true what they say, you gotta monetize in the Land of the Free that David Hasselhoff praised so much blasting his Schlager (evergreen) off the Berlin wall.

*A statement, they immediately corrected with a “No, we’re free communists” – Please add a strong German accent there.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI51rZmd66Y

It’s a great movie which I can highly recommend. (Viennese people: Before the movie theater I urge you to check out this place Die Burgermacher on Burggasse- really awesome burgers, and when I say awesome, I truly absolutely positively mean it! You can’t get anything more authentic in good ol’ Wien).

In retrospect, I doubt that it only takes a fleeting 5 minutes of fast sprinting up and down the hills of San Francisco to go from Lombard St to the middle of the Golden Gate (1 hour and 15 min of walking). Ultimately, the movie bothered me, though, showing all those nice areal views of the city. It made me want to go back to the City (San Francisco, rather than New York because Sunny Californ-I-A is what I need now, really)  and just hang there using my fake Starbucks name (Francis that is).

I am afraid this is not how this works on our side and that’s exactly why I like this campaign by Wirz/BBDO so much.

Ad campaign by smallworld.ch - A situation I've seen before. Sweating, spitting, tongues twisted.

(I Believe in Advertising)

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.

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.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9YTxff3pHU

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)

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.

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)

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

fm4.ORF.at / Wörterbuch Maklerdeutsch – Deutsch.

YouTube – Two Ronnies: Hieroglyphics – Who says that hieroglyphs have to be deciphered following the translations of the Rosetta stone? What if Napoleon didn’t stumbled upon it. No, just kidding, it actually was Captain Pierre-François Bouchard, well it was a French man, however, I still can’t let go on the idea that Napoleon had some role in this spectacular discovery.

illustration by Guacamole Goalie

Whenever an attempt to communication or action fails, people get very creative when they encounter a lack of understanding. Both German and English have a vast repertoire listing expressions of incomprehension.

Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof – Where is the next train station?

• Example: Im Gespräch über die Zukunft der Firma verstand ich nur Bahnhof
• Literally translated: I only understand train station.
• Origin: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof – World War I. War-weary soldiers used this phrase to cut off conversations that weren’t dealing with the train ride home. They would only understand train station. For soldiers Bahnhof (train station) represented the only way to return to their loved ones. The meaning has changed over the years.
• Meaning: Today this phrase means to not understand completely and that you are having a hard time following someone. Another approach on the origin is that you only understand the basics of a foreign language and nothing other than that.
• Equivalent: No English counterpart found. Use phrases for incomprehension from below.

Greek To Me, Spanish To You, Chinese to Some

• Example: That is all Greek to me. – Das kommt mir Spanisch vor.
• Origin EN: That’s all Greek to me – the English version derives from William Shakespeare who literally meant that the speech of Cicero was delivered in Greek and thus was not understood by him. We now use it in a figurative fashion. Literal/Figurative?
• Origin DE: Karl V was king of Spain for several years and then made it German emperor. The Spanish wedding ceremony was still used in Germany and considered as strange and outrageous.
• Additonal Info: Good old Willy might have mirrored the Latin phrase “Graecum est, non legitur”- “es ist Griechisch, deswegen ist es unlesbar” – “it is Greek and thus it is unreadable”
• Proverbs that are similar like the above-mentioned in other languages (Wikipedia).
• If you don’t want to pick on the Greek language, you can also say It’s double Dutch to me. Same meaning.

Mein Name Ist Bond Hase

• Example: Wer mit deinem Rad weggefahren ist? Mein Name ist Hase. Ich weiß von nichts.
• Meaning: I have no clue. I do not understand. Also: I don’t want to know anything about it and I’m not saying anything.
• Origin: Mein Name ist Hase. 19th century. This phrase goes back to the days of Victor von Hase (von Hase is his last name) who helped out his friend who killed someone in aduel. His friend had to flee from the consequences. Victor von Hase game his friend student ID (the legend says) who then was found by authorities and sent right back. Back at the university Victor’s friend said when beinginterrogated, “Mein Name ist Hase. Ich verneine alle Frage, ich weiß von nichts” (transl.: My Name is Hase. I refuse/negate all questions (asked during cross-examination), I don’t know anything). The story around Victor von Hase and his friend spread very quickly and people heard of this phrase, picked it up and added it to their everyday phrases.
• Lit. translated: My name is Hase.
• Equivalent EN: You can use the phrase in English, but everyone will shoot back with something like that: “That’s double Dutch” or “That’s all Greek” – This would reach the point of successfully failed communication.

ALTERNATIVE SPELLING or TYPO AHEAD would have been appropriate to prepare thin-skinned people. Well, as Metroblogging LA put it, SIHT HAPPENS, right?

Must have been LA county's final spelling bee contestant · via Metroblogging LA

As much as some enjoy Spelling Bee contests, others are fed up with this infinite inconsitancy · photo by For Ever Soul

You are not alone… Confusion rules over Englishas a rule in terms of vocabulary, phrasal verbs and so on. We know that. Being an English as a Second Languagespeaker I am more than familiar – compellingly – with the phonetic unreliability as The Guardian describes the messed uppronunciationand spelling relation of English words. If you know how to pronounce a word in – say – Italian, you automatically can construct the word’s spelling for there are clear rules. This rule does apply for many languages, but English does not feature thisconsistencyas a world language. Unfortunately this gives English speakers (both natives and ELS speakers) a really hard time. What do these 100 words have in common? Visible for you and you only, after the jump.

“Orange, foreign, rhinoceros, properly, vomit, tambourine, tournament, tourist, heaven, engine, exquisite, opposite, advertisement, gnarled, rigid, risen, sinister, spinach, video, vinegar, tie, wheelie, quiet, science, crier, pliers, soldier, Monday, mongrel, monkey, courage, magic, manage, palace, four, journey, gnash, gnaw, gnome, ghastly, guard, miracle, miserable, pigeon, pity, prison, month, mother, nothing, once, smother, son, sponge, tongue, wonder, almost, both, comb, ghost, gross, most, only, post, programme, deny, reply, July, obey, caterpillar, chapel, damage, dragon, fabulous, family, famished, garage, glacier, habit, hazard, hexagonal, imagine, panic, radish, miaow, powder, cauliflower, plant, pyjamas, raft, rather, salami, task, vast, kiosk, kiwi, machine, encourage, somersault, swollen, souvenir.”

Answer: Although some of these 100 words show the same letter sequences, the phonetics differ. The most famous example for this is, and I am not kidding, fish. How that?

The word fish, as in the animal that populates very wet areas with a high concentration ofoxygenmolecules accompanied by two hydrogen atoms on Planet Earth (maybe Mars, too, who knows), can be also written as – and now there’s the shocker – ghoti… If you just went “What the heck is GHOTI,” you will appreciate this explanation:

Fish = Ghoti (Trust me)

gh as in enoughphonetically equals i nuhf as in father, wolf,…

o as in women phonetically equals wi min as in it, wish,…

ti as in nation phonetically equals na SHen as in ship, station,…

Ough = ow, off, uff, …

• bough rhymes with cow
• cough rhymes with off
• rough rhymes with puff
• though rhymes with joe
• through rhymes with two

More examples of spelling and pronounciation fluctuations(that’s a fancy word for irregularities and that is a fancy word for aint-the-same) you can find at the ESLdepot.com. Great resource I often surf for information related to the English language per se.

Whereas the Spelling Bee contests (competitions really smart kids show off their spelling skills) would be subject to extinction, issues with the spelling and pronouncation spreading all over the English speaking countries could finally be resolved. The Spelling Society favours the approach that first allows the old and new system and then gradually makes English speakers use the superior (newer) spelling rules. A new set of rules fighting the phonetic unreliability would renew pronunciation that stems from centuries ago like through (although America has already – nearly – adopted a shortened version. “Thru”, in traffic signs and bill boards for instance) and eliminates “surplus letters” like i in friend, u in shoulder, u in four, … This list could go on.

A Major Change For People, that is hard to get used to.

Naturally, progressive suggestions like these call out loud for people screaming “No, No and No.” Various languages, German, Turkish and even English (from olde to old and worlde to world) have passed certain adjustments to modern times, so why would you possibly want to stop a language’s dynamic flow?”It would be such a major revolution that people would find it very difficult to contemplate”, the spokesman for the National Primary Headteachers’ Association said and confirmed that this inconstancy slowed down English children. Well, for those out there screaming “No, No and No” without even hearing out ideas like that, I have a lovely concept of life: Change is the only constant in life.

Amy Walker did a pretty good job in covering a variety (21 to be precise) of accents. I love her Sco-ish, German and New Zealand accent. I also recommend the interview the the 21-accent-lady (it’s very captivating to hear her natural accent).

ritN eng iz ded · by clementgallet.com

SMS slNg must B D onlE wA 2 XprS oursLvz

In this grammar book aset of rules is provided to reduce the amount of characters in any kind of communication and points out neat ways of shortcutting b/c time=$. The book’s recommendation is that “SMS slNg must B D onlE wA 2 XprS oursLvz” & announces that “ritN eng iz ded“.

You now probably think that there must be an error in the blogging software, Philipp wouldn’t mess with typos and besides, the post title is messed up too. BUT, today, I made an exception, because you little wise Sherlocks out there, couldn’t help but keep thinking about what this could mean. Here’s the solution. With this crazy language but it obviously works (w/ Dz crAZ lNgwij bT it obVuslE works).

Now, if you happen to be lost and not able to follow at all. The capital letters are pronounced like the letters. For example. crAZ is “crazy” since the A is prounced like Ahhhh and the z as in Zee. Uncapitalized are pronounced like any other letter depending on the the letter before and after, just like in common English. Also already established abbreviations are used, for example “eng” for English.

Check out clementgallet.com for more efficient SMS slang lessons and flip through the book SMS lNgwij mNEfSt.

Nw R U plN’N on Uzin’ Ds wA o’ comUnEKshn? doS it mAk senz 2 U? 2 mE it doS 2 a certN dEgrE as U cn C, h/e, iz it D evolshn thA r prEtndin it iz?

(Now are you planning on this way of communication? Does it make sense to you? To me it does to a certain degree as you can see, however, is it the evolution they are pretending it is?)

Two final thoughts. Might be useful for twitter updates. And last but not least, I can’t think of a wA Dz wut B pozEbl in de.

[via monoscope.com]

Is it true that we could have had the term VSA (V for vereinigt) instead of USA (U for united) on today's maps?

So, before we look at the background story of this myth circulating among people familiar with skills in both languages, I have to ask you. Have you ever heard of an allegedly official vote on this official language and do you buy that story that might be a blend of historical facts?

My last question kind of hints the answer. The myth of course is a really good myth (a true core does that to myths), however, it is not true that there ever was a vote on the official language of the United States that had German miss the privileged language title of English by just one vote. Being precise (as we always are, cuz that’s how we roll here) I have to mention that there is no such thing as an official language in the country of the unlimited opportunities* also known as the US of A.

1795 – There was a vote on language matters indeed.

Admittedly, there seems to be an item in the US history that has been fueling this myth’s survival for years. In 1795 (that frequently is changed to the momentous year of 1776 for credibility reasons, I think) there was a vote on language matters indeed in the state of Virgnia, but this vote was only dealing with the question whether or not to translate laws and official documents into the German language, but was refused since a faster integration in a united America (one language, one nation) was guaranteed by offering services in only one single language. Assimilation, that is. English flyers and leaflets were distributed for free for example, so the German population asked for this service in German too.

In fact this vote took place in Virginia unlike common believes that speak of Pennsylvania where a third of its population consisted of German immigrants. This is one of the reasons why the myth lives on since this very state is known for its high percentage of German Neuweltlers (new worlders).

Let’s blame it on the Nazis?

Historians today blame the Nazi-influenced German American Bund to be responsible for the attempt of pushing up and polishing the importance of the German language in history. Apparently they succeded in spreading the rumours and myth for a long time: Now it would be interesting if this kind of myth already existed long before the Nazis were around. Is that just another “yeah, let’s blame it on the Nazis”? Well, I don’t know, but it sounds reasonable to me, but, you never know unless you ask people who lived before 1930ish.

Plus, here a fact that makes this whole myth look like a fairy tale grannies tell you before going to bed: The percentage of German immigrants never exceeded 10% of the US population.

Want to read more details on this myth about English or German and German immigrants, please read through “The German Americans – English or German?” pages.

I hope you enjoyed busting this myth. Wouldn’t it be a great to pick up language myth and discuss them?

* This is slightly off-topic, but since we cover the connection of the English and German language in today’s blog entry, I am unable to refrain from commenting on this frequently used phrase “unlimited opportunities” in context with the US. Mockingly a lot of people (mostly from Europe, I wonder why, haha) say limited impossibilities (1) instead of unlimited opportunites (2): Das Land der begrenzten Möglichkeiten (1) vs. Das Land der begrenzten Unmöglichkeiten (2). This rephrasing is called anti-proverb in linguistics, FYI.