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Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english Subject: Re: Inkhorns are a fascinating linguistic phenomenon, ... Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 08:08:55 +0200 Organization: Khanya Publications Lines: 114 Message-ID: <fd4iejttosqug5ocqh8ktecioeupeci1uo@4ax.com> References: <vc2vce$198ap$2@dont-email.me> <vc3gq2$1cbvr$1@dont-email.me> <vc3ia5$1cm15$1@dont-email.me> <vc4j6p$1jmhv$1@dont-email.me> <slrnvec24s.jtd.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de> <vc676q$22upl$1@dont-email.me> <slrnvee9ra.1arp.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de> <vc7hk6$2ca11$1@dont-email.me> <vc7s1s$2em5q$1@dont-email.me> <877cbcgly9.fsf@parhasard.net> <76308de7b2b351111d3e19b78e65bde7@www.novabbs.com> Reply-To: hayesstw@yahoo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 08:07:42 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="02ba1f080180ed88fecc99c33ea52813"; logging-data="3551615"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18M/WMJY14k17H/lH2qzsyYHvf4m2adINo=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:pv7iLBrK576uqvDY6XlHwwmNFeo= X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 2.0/32.652 Bytes: 6020 On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:35:36 +0000, jerry.friedman99@gmail.com (jerryfriedman) wrote: >[alt.language.latin deleted] > >On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 6:19:10 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote: >.. > >> IOne of the reasons I listen to MDR Sachsen’s >> „Hausarztsprechstunde“ >> https://www.mdr.de/sachsenradio/programm/ratgeber/hausarztsprechstunde100.html >> is for the non-jargon vocabulary. (It’s a radio programme aimed at the >> general >> public.) Like, of course I know that a pneumothorax is a Pneumothorax, >> but >> what’s equivalent to “collapsed lung” when speaking to non-medical >> patients? > >Do you practice in a German-speaking country? Or in an English- >speaking country where you see so many German-speaking >patients that you need to know such things? I have an article by Michael Frayn, called "Inside the Krankenhaus" in which he goes on about how screamingly funny German medical terminology sounds to English speakers. Actually he's taking the mickey out of the Daily Mirror's chauvinism, in a series of articles written by Auberon Waugh and his wife. 'The Germans are the latest race to come under their microscope. "Our idea of the country," writes Mr Waugh, had been formed by seeing war films in which all Germans shout 'Ach so! Gott in Himmel!!'" He was agreeably surprised to find that this was not the case in the Federal Republic today, and almost as surprised by the sheer variety of the German race. "Germans come in all sizes," he reports, "fat, thin, tall, short, dark, fair. Some are cheerful, some gloomy." _Ach so!_, one feels like gasping. Thin as well as fat? Short as well as tall? Some cheerful, some gloomy? Well, dash it all! Gott, as one might say, in Himmel! So the old prejudices and misconceptions are at last exposed. There's only one thing in which Mr Waugh thinks the Germans might be deficient, and that's a sense of the ridiculous -- a grave flaw, of course, which sets them apart from visiting British journalists and others. Mr Waugh thinks their language might be in some way to blame. "{It must be very difficult to keep a straight face," he writes, "if, when you go to visit a relative in hospital, you have to ask for the Krankenhaus, or, when you want the way out, if you have to ask for the Ausfahrt." I suppose it must. I'd never thought of it that way before. I suppose life must be just one long struggle to keep themselves from bursting out laughing at their own language. It would explain a lot, of course. That's what the object of all that iron Prussian discipline must have been. That's what all those duelling scars were for -- to camouflage the dirty grins on the faces of people inquiring about the Ausfahrt. Now that the old traditional codes of discipline have gone it's terrible. The approach to every Ausfahrt, Einfahrt and Krankenhaus in the Federal Republic is jammed with people falling about and holding their sides. But that's nothing to what it's like _inside_ the Krankenhaus. Inside it sounds like 14 different studio audiences trying to earn their free tickets simultaneously, as the patients try to describe their various comic-sounding symptoms to the staff. Here's a new admission scarcely able to speak for giggles as he tells the doctor he has a pain in his elbow. "A Schmertz in your Ellengoben?" repeats the doctor without any sign of amusement -- he's heard the joke before, of course. "Which Ellenbogen?" "Both Ellenbogens," replies the patient, trying to pull himself together. "I also get agonising twinges which run up and down my leg from my... from my..." But it's no good -- he's off again. Unable to get the words out for laughing, he points silently from his thigh to his ankle. "From your Schenkel to your Knöchel?" says the doctor, the corner of his mouth twitching very lightly in spite of himself. The patient nods helplessly. "And sometimes," he gasps, "and sometimes... all the way down my..." He closes his eyes and vibrates silently, shaking his head from time to time to show that speech is beyond him. "Come on," says the doctor, frankly grinning himself now. "Get it out." "All the way down my... my Wirb... my Wirbel... "' (Wirbelshäule -- backbone aka spine) ....and so on, through Verstopfung, Kniescheibenentzüngung (Housemaid's Knee), Windpocken and a pain in the Nasenflügel. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk