The British press has been having much fun with the introduction of shitstorm into the German dictionary. In German it apparently has the rather precise meaning of uncontrollable public outrage. [EDITED OUT STUPID MISTAKE]
What's even odder is that the Germans felt the need for it. They have scheiße and they have sturm and they have a remarkable habit of making compound nouns. Why import?
Anyway, I now look forward to a scheißesturm und drang novel, and when suffering from diarrhoea they could dash for a blitzscheiße, or lightning shit.
Absolutely!
ReplyDeleteOther examples of Denglisch are handy, not as a synonym for helpful, but as a noun meaning 'mobile phone' and old timer, not to mean your grandpa, but a classic car. Even more bizarre are streetworker to mean 'social worker' and peeling for 'body scrub'.
Of course you probably know already that the German word for diarrhoea is the perfectly apt "Durchfall", a compound noun formed from "durch" (through) and "fall" (fall).
ReplyDeleteGoogle translator has 'Scheiße Sturm' if you make it two words or hyphenated, but 'shitstorm' if it's one word (which might be a failure to translate).
ReplyDeleteWhile there I also looked up: 'clusterficken'.
Perhaps we might not be too concerned at the Teutons, and concentrate on our own back yard, especially in a storm.
ReplyDeleteWhy, for instance, do we say 'thunder and lightning'?Should it not be the other way round?