Are German nipples the worst?

[Crackerofdoom]

I just learned the word for nipples in German is Brustwarzen

The literal translation is "breast warts"

Is this the worst direct translation or are there more out there?

Can you imagine that as Tesco’s tagline, @silenceofthemams?

Insults:

Warmduscher
Garagenparker

And my personal favourite: Teletubbyzurückwinker ("one who waves back at the Teletubbies")

Finnish animals are fucking weird

I have to say - other than the cows - and birds (I guess English owls are similar) the rest are a bit odd. Especially the pigs.

The pigs sound more like a dog should sound

I read a piece in a local German newspaper today where some idiots set 400m² of woodland on fire by having a barbecue.
There's a German saying "Gegen Dummheit ist kein Kraut gewachsen" that came straight into my head, literally "There's no herb for stupidity" (or would that be against?), I think the closest in English would be "You can't cure stupid".

We take aspirin for a headache i.e. to make it go away, not to give us one. So I think you are correct saying for in your translation. I know gegen is against.

Since this thread has attracted linguists like a moth to a flame I wonder if any of you can help a poor American who's grappling with plural confusion ...

from one of my favourite sites:

notoneoffbritishisms.com/2020/04/08/collective-nouns/

I was intrigued by something New York Times soccer (football) writer Rory Smith mentioned the other day. Apparently there had been a discussion on his newsletter about the way British usage considers a team plural, but American usage has it singular: "Chelsea are playing today" versus "New York is playing today." (If only). I've looked at the issue a a few times on the blog, most recently here; you can see all the posts by typing the word "plural" into the search field at right.

It’s odd that in English we take medicines FOR pain/an illness when in fact we should be taking it AGAINST one

I'm always bemused by 'shampoo for greasy hair' (or similar).

I stick to the one for normal hair, thank you very much

You take medicine/tablets "for the relief" of something don't you?

Is that why for & not against?

I've always just understood it as meaning "for treating headaches", "for washing greasy hair". If I buy shampoo for greasy hair, it doesn't give me greasy hair, any more than buying a shampoo for dogs gives me a dog.

Isn't that kind of ambiguity the basis of a lot of British humour though? Like the old answer to the escalator sign 'Dogs must be carried' - 'But I don't have a dog!' I'm acutely aware jokes like this are untranslatable in most inflected languages.

English is one of those languages you have to learn a lot of things off by heart because they don't follow any kind of logical pattern. When I was doing the language acquisition module of my English degree, they introduced an idea called 'Native Speaker Competence'. I'm wondering if this is now an old-fashioned concept and should be replaced by 'Native Speaker Privilege' as native English speakers of whatever variety seem able to mangle their words at will and make themselves understood and accepted. Whereas foreigners doing the same will be, er, a bit foreign.

I loved some of the sayings my Polish grandfather came out with, a classic from his war years being: The only way to talk to some people is with a brick.

(Which reminds me, we need a brick smiley on here. )

Isn't that kind of ambiguity the basis of a lot of British humour though? Like the old answer to the escalator sign 'Dogs must be carried' - 'But I don't have a dog!' I'm acutely aware jokes like this are untranslatable in most inflected languages.

Stewart Lee commented similar noting the classic "...and the I got off the bus" pull-back-and-reveal type joke doesn't work in German, since the language telegraphs the information in a way that makes it difficult to get a laugh. Apparently German humour is much more narrative. But then we have the Billy Connolly school of shaggy-dog stories, so it all balances out.

I am pretty certain there is a (rare ?) German pun in "Downfall" when the soldiers are escaping the Fuhrerbunker. They're looking around and one shouts (and the subtitles read): It's nothing but warehouses - they're all warehouses and they are full of nothing ! which elicits a drunken roar of laughter from his comrades.

Of course the French seem to do nothing but pun. Or so I was once warned after reading a headline about a womans severed breast found in the R. Seine in the 90s ....

German's pretty good for puns tbh, as the words are all made up of re-usable building blocks.

Plenty of possible ambguity: "Helft den armen Vögeln" means "Help the poor birds". "Helft den Armen vögeln" means "Help the poor have sex".

"Warehouse" is "Lager", and that and various related words (lagern, belagern) have loads of different meanings. Maybe in this case it was even a pun on "Lage", meaning "layer" or "situation".

Oh, or maybe a joke involving "auf Lager haben", which means "have something in stock" or figuratively "have something up your sleeve", often as in always having a funny joke up your sleeve.

"Warehouse" is "Lager"

If you think really really hard, you can imagine where "larder" came from.

"Pantry" remains a mystery ..

Pantry-to do with bread?

I don't get the warehouse pun. Am I being stupid?

I don't get the warehouse pun.

There was nothing in the warehouses - what with it being the last days of WW2 for Berlin ...

Plenty of possible ambguity: "Helft den armen Vögeln" means "Help the poor birds". "Helft den Armen vögeln" means "Help the poor have sex".

Is there any difference at all in the pronunciation of the above?? Or are you reliant on context when spoken?

Regarding the pluralities question for UK v USA, I don't know the answer but it does explain why my (annoyingly American) spellcheck gets cross at me sometimes for using 'are' not 'is'. I hadn't realised that was a distinction between the two countries. Chelsea are playing makes sense to me because although it is a singular club the team playing is made up of many individuals so is a plural. I guess American just see the team as a singular unit.

It's to do with capital letters:
Vögel = birds, Vögeln = birds in the accusative case
vögeln = to have sex (verb)

For some reason I loved the fact that in Thai if someone is a plonker you can call them a “hua dor”. Literal translation - dick head. Felt right at home then I did.

or gross:
Brecht Brot und verteilt es unter den Armen.

1. break bread and share it out to the poor.
2. vomit up bread and smear it into your armpits.

brechen = break or vomit
Armen = the poor (pl) or the arms

It's the same for a team of staff in US English.

We say "The staff are friendly and helpful"

Americans would say "The staff is friendly and helpful"

You can usually change your spellcheck into British English, is it a browser, phone, software (Word etc) or computer you need to change it on?