Endlich mal wieder #GermanConversationSnippets und #compoundWatch in einem:

A: Ein Schweinsohr bitte
[Verkaufsabwicklung]
B: Wolln Sie ein Stück unnützes Wissen dazu?
A: [Verwirrt, war auch schnell gesprochen] Nein, wie, ja gerne.
B: Das heißt nicht Schweinsohr wegen der Form wie alle denken sondern weil es ursprünglich in Schweineschmalz gebacken wurde. Aber das ist heute ethisch nicht mehr vertretbar.
A: Ah, OK, das wusste ich nicht, danke.

[Kontext: Beim Bäcker im Kaufland im Lindenauer Martk, A Verkäuferin, B ich. 08/05/2025]

Sweet #compoundWatch moment today:
1. There was a "rumor clinic" at the Boston Herald during WW2 times for what now would be called fact-checking.
2. The idea came from a very impressive female journalist, Frances Sweeney, who unfortunately died very young. More here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Sweeney

Recht traurige #compoundWatch Neuigkeiten an diesem Sonnabendmorgen: hat man gerade gelernt dass französisch "sommet du poumon" = 'Lungenspitze', dann ist es wohl eine berechtigte Hoffnung dass "sommet du nez" = 'Nasenspitze'. Leider bedeutet es aber genau das Gegenteil, 'Nasenwurzel'. Positiv und etwas versöhnlich immerhin dass wenn man sich diese Gegenteiligkeit im Nasenbereich gemerkt hat "bout du nez" = 'Nasenspitze' keine Überraschung mehr ist :)
#French #German #SemanticTransparency

The different names for the concept "round, fried dough typically filled with jam and topped with sugar" are a classic of German dialectology. I can now add a great folk etymology for [ˈfankuːxn̩]: "Fun-kuchen" (with English "fun") instead of "Pfannkuchen" pan + cake. According to the speaker, he thought this was correct way longer than he now is comfortable with. Unfortunately I felt it somewhat inappropriate to ask how long that was :) #compoundWatch

I am lowkey intrigued by the German usage of "lowkey" (a compound afterall), here an utterance overheard yesterday:
"OK, dann fahre ich lowkey nochmal nach Hause" [context: within a group of male university students, in front of a university building, Leipzig, 24.07.2024]
#compoundWatch #GermanConversationSnippets

Compounds are fun, and one fun thing about them is that their lexical meanings can be overwritten by ad-hoc meanings. "Monkey business" below is an example where the ad-hoc meaning is actually one that follows an established pattern. While the lexicalized meaning for "monkey business" is 'mischievous, suspect, or dishonest behaviour or acts', below it means 'business involving monkeys', a pattern common enough in compounds ending in business ("fashion/publishing/music business" etc)
#compoundWatch #semanticTransparency #English

Complete #compoundWatch happiness in Leipzig today: discovered a #German sign warning of "Baumgefahren" tree + dangers 'dangers caused by trees', which makes pretty much the same point as the "Gefahrenbäume" dangers + trees 'trees that cause dangers' sign I saw in Wuppertal in 2022. Admittedly, they are not semantically equivalent (the first one refers to dangers, the second one to trees), but this is still pretty cool. In terms of Levi's #semanticRelations, it can both be analyzed as CAUSE, with reversed directions, cf. #English 'drug deaths' vs. 'tear gas'.

Still classifying adjective noun combinations and glad to be able to report that neither the long ton nor the short ton are equal in weight to the metric ton. Also, there is a handy formula to remember why a long ton is 2,240 pounds (=1,016 kilograms): just keep in mind that it is 20 long hundredweight, each weighing 8 stone. And since a stone = 14 pounds, we get: 20 x 8 x 14 lb
#compoundWatch

Classifying Adjective-Noun combinations conundrum of the day: Are unwritten
laws laws? Hours later, I remembered that it is rather similar to examples like
"fake gun" or "paper airplane" from the classic #semantics and
#pragmatics literature. Unfortunately, I also remember that the
classic literature does not really solve these issues. Kamp &
Partee (1995) note the "apparent context dependence of judgments about
whether a fake gun is a gun". And I liked Nick Asher's (2011) ruminations on
"paper airplane" so much that I quoted it in full in my habilitation, see below.
#compoundWatch

What compound noun results from combining 'tea' and 'egg'? It depends, Mandarin Chinese going for 茶叶蛋 cháyèdàn ['tea' + 'leaf'] + 'egg' = 'egg infused in tea', German for Tee-Ei 'tea' + 'egg' = 'tea-infuser in egg form'
Both semantically transparent in their very own ways :)
#compoundWatch #semanticTransparency

Another compound that should not be: German "Freßfabrik" 'to eat' + factory with the meaning "person who eats like a machine". Unexpected because there is actually the compound "Freßmaschine" 'to eat' + machine with exactly that meaning, and because in general the G Fabrik/Eng factory compounds typically lead to 'factory that produces X' interpretations, e.g. "Batteriefabrik"/'battery factory'.
Source: Hoffmans Hunger by Leon de Winter [Unfortunately I don't know what is used in the Dutch original here :(]
#compoundWatch #semanticTransparency

Häufiges Gesprächsthema landauf landab: Die Versicherungsnummer für die Rentenversicherung. Dies führte im Volksmund zu zwei gleichermaßen liebevoll verspielten Bezeichnungen: "Sozialversicherungsnummer" und "Rentenversicherungsnummer"
#compoundWatch
Source: https://www.zenjob.com/de/blog/sozialversicherungsnummer/

The Levenshtein distance is a measure for the difference between two sequences. For example, if you just have to change one character to get from one word to the other, their Levenshtein distance is 1. Conveniently, if two words have a Levenshtein distance of 1, e.g. German packen 'to pack' and kacken 'to shit', then this can also be exploited for compounds containing these words, resulting in the great #compoundWatch example below (maybe after the #BigBrotherAwards ?). German "Packstation" pack + station 'box where you can pick up your DHL packages' is also a good example for a complete lack of #semanticTransparency : whereas besides receiving parcels it apparently is also possible to send them from there, it is quite impossible to actually pack something into a parcel with the help of such a box.

Just wondering how frequent the phrase/compound "white lie" is nowadays and in general admiring what a good concept it is, and on casually checking via http://bncweb.lancs.ac.uk not only finding "classic white lie" (in case you wonder: "We are just good friends ---"), but, more relevant in academic and general writing contexts, this beauty:
"I didn't want to tell her I'd done nothing at all so I told a sort of white lie — said I was halfway through the first draft. "

The death of Tom Verlaine (RIP) is a reminder to listen to songs like "Venus" again, which, apart from its artistic merit, deserves mention from a compound-point-of-view for the "toy night" compound in the very first line:
"It was a tight toy night, streets so bright."
#compoundWatch #English #toyNight #Television #Venus