Seven German difference that clear secrets about English

The beauty of German is a “does what it says on a tin” structure. A opening cleaner is a Staubsauger  – literally dirt sucker, given that’s accurately what it does. In a same vein, an aeroplane is a Flugzeug (a drifting thing) and a lighter is a Feuerzeug (fire thing).

This “call a scoop a spade” impression can transparent some-more than a few mysteries in English, a denunciation some-more mysterious in a roots than a answer to a Times crossword clue.

1. Fernseher – television

The Fernsehturm in Berlin: a radio tower, or a building where we can see far. Photo: DPA

Take a English word “television”. You substantially use it each day, though did we ever cruise about what it means? Well, vocalization German competence assistance you. 

The German word for radio is Fernseher, that literally means “far watcher”. Strange during first, though it creates clarity when we cruise that a invention of radio done it probable to watch things function very, unequivocally distant away.

In fact, a English word means accurately a same thing. But unless we difficult Latin and Greek, we competence never have satisfied this. The word comes from a Greek “tele” (far) and a Latin “visio” (sight).

This is indeed utterly a singular kind of word in English (and sparkling for etymology geeks) given it is not done adult of only Latin difference or only Greek words, though both.

2. Flusspferd – hippopotamus

Two hippopotamuses during Berlin Zoo. Photo: DPA

Hippopotamus competence have been one of your favourite difference as a child – it lends itself ideally to rhymes and rythmn. But we expected never dwelled too prolonged on a tangible meaning.

The German word for a African animal is Flusspferd, that literally means “river-horse”, or Nilpferd, definition “Nile horse”. Silly, we competence think. A hippopotamus’ earthy similarities to a equine are sincerely limited.

But a English is indeed identical. Our word comes from a ancient Greek “hippos” (horse) and “potamus” (river), definition we indeed call it a river-horse too.

In fact, when we cruise that we mostly only impute to them as “hippos”, we comprehend we’re unequivocally only job them horses.

2. Mutterkuchen – placenta

If we have ever come opposite a German word for placenta, we substantially had to suppress a reduction of delight and nausea. Why on earth would Germans name a organ we feed on in a womb a cake?

Translating it literally as “mothering-cake”, it unequivocally conjures adult a flattering bizarre image.

Yet, once again, what seems an unflinchingly verbatim tenure reveals something flattering engaging about English. The full medical name for a placenta is “placenta uterina”, that translates from a Latin as “uterine cake”.

For a Romans a “placenta” was privately a form of prosaic cake, and a organ was called a placenta due to a apparently identical shape.

3. Muttermund – cervix

By a same token, a full medical name for a cervix is a “cervix uteri”, that means a “neck of a uterus.”

So job a cervix a “mothering-mouth” in German is not unequivocally that different, it only uses a opposite partial of eating embellishment to report to report a place where a spermatazoa travels. And when we contend “cervix”, we are unequivocally only job it a neck.

Referring to a cervix as a form of neck or mouth creates clarity if we cruise behind to your school-day biology diagrams and see that it is a gateway from a vagina to a uterus.

4. Donnerstag – Thursday

Chris Hemsworth in 2013 film “Thor: The Dark World”. Photo: Walt Disney Germany/DPA.

Mulling over a German word for Thursday while sheltering yourself from a torrential charge one morning, this one competence have strike we like a shaft out of a blue.

Why on earth would Germans name a fourth day of a week a day of rumble (Donners-tag means Thunder-day)? Then we substantially suspicion about Thursday and had that wait-a-minute moment. Thur sounds a lot like Thor, a hasty Norse God who favourite personification with thunder. 

And you’d be right. The produce wielding diety incited renouned Marvel comic impression is called “Donar” in German. So we both call it “Thor’s Day”.

But it’s not only us. The French, Spanish and Italians, nonetheless holding their days of a week from Latin, also named Thursday after a homogeneous Roman god, Jupiter also famous as Jove. That’s since it’s “jeudi” in French, “jueves” in Spanish, and “giovedi” in Italian.

Look a small deeper and you’ll see a God thesis reappear via a days of a week.

6. The Strand