My Favorite Waste of Time . . .

[rock soderstrom]

Gotta love the German compound words.

We're really good at that. With a few extra-long compound words, you can drive your fellow players to despair in Scrabble!

You mean like the word for a car indicator ? .. (which is surely 'blinkenlampentickentocken' )

Completely wrong, mate, your German still has some room for improvement!

 

[rogs]

We're really good at that. With a few extra-long compound words, you can drive your fellow players to despair in Scrabble!
View attachment 140873

Completely wrong, mate, your German still has some room for improvement!

That's true! ... I think maybe I should start with learning some technical German .... like the instructions on the cover of my fuse box, perhaps?

 

[Khron]

like the instructions on the cover of my fuse box

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights#Etymology

 

[pmfalcman]

Completely wrong, mate, your German still has some room for improvement!

Hey! C'mon! He got the first half right. Well, almost half...
It's blinkenlampenklickenklackendirektionindikator



...for short

 

[rogs]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights#Etymology

The actual plate in my photo was originally mounted on the cover of the fuse box of my parents home.... around 60 years ago.
Native English speakers seem to be able to 'adapt' German for humorous effect.

I have a German friend who speaks Engish well enough to be able to tell jokes in English..... But he does not understand why the English find the German language so amusing..... I'm not sure this 'comedy' aspect works in reverse? .....

 

[k brown]

It's an agglutinated language:

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/long-german-words#:~:text=German was made to be,was in effect until 2013.

 

[rock soderstrom]

It's blinkenlampenklickenklackendirektionindikator

That sounds better, quite German and the length is right too

That's true! ... I think maybe I should start with learning some technical German .... like the instructions on the cover of my fuse box, perhaps?

I already know the sign, you've posted it before, I think it's great.

Native English speakers seem to be able to 'adapt' German for humorous effect.

Of course they do, we've heard it many times! Don't worry, we do it with other languages too, you should hear my “French” or my "Russian".

I have a German friend who speaks Engish well enough to be able to tell jokes in English..... But he does not understand why the English find the German language so amusing..... I'm not sure this 'comedy' aspect works in reverse? .....

It works similarly, but I have to admit, jokes and humor don't really translate well. I've tried a few times to translate jokes (into English), I wasn't very successful...

What was the original topic of the thread again? Big apologies to the thread opener.

 

[rock soderstrom]

It's an agglutinated language:

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/long-german-words#:~:text=German was made to be,was in effect until 2013.

Super interesting!

"Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz"

That's a mouthful even by German standards , but the word (and similar ones) could actually exist in exactly the same way.

 

[13engrsapper]

Kurzschwanzschildkröte