LL-L: "Chicken =?iso-8859-1?Q?scr=E4tches?=" LOWLANDS-L, 06.OCT.2000 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 06.OCT.2000 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Wilf Ratzburg [wratzburg at hotmail.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Chicken scrätches" (was "Pronunciation") LOWLANDS-L,
05.OCT.2000 (02) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]

"Gift Haus".  It's a constant source
> of amusement for those who know German (and there are more and more German
> tourists in the area), because it means 'house of poison' in German, not
the
> intented 'house of gifts'.  I bet the sales people have heard quite a few
> remarks about that, but I have a feeling they don't really care.  ("Yeah,
who
> cares, Mr. Smartypants?")

While in this humorous frame: for several years I chuckled at the curious
sign above a deli in a suburb near Vancouver -- "Dieter's Delicatessen".
Obviously, reading it while in an "anglo" mindset, I'd ask myself why a
dieter would frequent the fatty world of wonderful sausages. It was only
after several years of such chuckling that my mind hit upon the notion that,
most likely, the proprietor's name was Dieter.

Silly me!

Wilf Ratzburg
***************

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From: gdeutsch at estec.esa.nl
Subject: LL-L: "Chicken scrätches" (was "Pronunciation") LOWLANDS-L,
05.OCT.2000 (02) [E]

Georg Deutsch at ESA
10/06/2000 09:51 AM

Dear Lowlands Readers,

John Feather wrote, quoting first Ron:

>>Yep, better stay away from them Continental dots and chicken-scratches on
>>letters ... they are routinely omitted from foreign words and names in the
>>popular English language media.

>Of course, we make up for it by using them in the wrong places.

Even here in the Netherlands the usage of umlaut-dots in German words seem to
be done sometimes at random.
Probably less frequent than in the States, but still quite regularly one can
see these dots where the only reason I could think of is, that the author
thinks the word looks more German with two dots on a vowel. There are many
cases. One I of course easily do remember is that I saw my name (Deutsch)
written here in Holland sometimes as "Deütsh" or "Deütch". I assume some
people have the not reflected feeling that if somebody has such a German name,
there MUST be somewhere an umlaut as well.
Frequently I see on Dutch maps (including official ones) the capital of Tyrol
(Innsbruck) stated as "Innsbrück" - an understandable mistake, because most or
at least many Dutch know that the Standard German word for bridge is "Brücke".
Actually "InnsbrUck" is one of the relatively rare cases (in Austria) where
the official place name is not formed with the standard German version but
with the local dialect form (Bruck(n)).

Back to English: does anybody know how the name for the American(?) popular,
expensive and delicious (all epithets according to my personal perception) ice
cream "Häagan Dadz"(did I spell it now correctly?) can be explained? Just a
successful attempt to look weird, or is there more? And is there a commonly
agreed way to pronounce this?

regards
Gerog Deutsch

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Chicken scratches

It's not just those "damned dots" which cause problems. London's Wembley
Stadium is hosting its last game tomorrow and TV programmes have been
recalling past events such as the 1966 World Cup final and 1948 Olympic
Games. A major gold-medal winner at those games was the Dutchwoman Fanny
Blankers-Coen who was, I think, a middle-distance runner and attracted
attention in part because she was married and had a couple of children,
which was thought a bit unusual for a female athlete. (Or perhaps it just
seemed unusual to a schoolboy!) Anyhoo, she has been recalled a number of
times but since commentators today don't remember her from their own
experience they call her "Fanny Blankers-Cohen".

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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