The title of this article sounds completely morbid to an American, but to a German it sounds like a great way to spend a summer evening. It’s not because we have such different preferences, it is because Germans are adopting our language without bothering to ask anyone of us who really speaks it, if what they are saying is gibberish. It’s kind of like how the Chinese with immigration-background in America pay someone to professionally print out their menus and name tags of dishes on the sneeze guards at buffets, but can’t be hassled to ask one of the 250 million native English speakers here to proof read it first.
Someone who speaks better Italian than we do wrote an article mentioning the deutschification of “public viewing”, which in English would refer to general access to see the dead body of a famous person before the burial. In German “Public Fyooing” now refers to watching soccer on a big TV for free with 500 or more people.
We’re not sure exactly what the correct English term for this type of occurrence would actually be, but surely the German language is expressive enough to come up with its own term for this type of event. Since the Germans make up English words, we have made up some for the Germans to choose from:
- Mitguckgelegenheit
- Endlichmalpatriotismuszeigendürfen
- Knappbeikassekannnichtinderkneipezuschauen
Feel free to add your own new contrived German in the comments. Or since the English term “public viewing” is already taken, feel free to throw in a new English term that’s not related to death like the rest of the Germans’ adopted English words.
If your entry gets published in Duden, we’ll send you an awesome T-Shirt.
deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden
Servus Astrid!
Hier die Übersetzung, heute von Melanie (danke Dir Melanie, übrigens):
Schnapp dir nach der Schießerei einen Leichensack und dann ab zur Aufbahrung.
Die Überschrift dieses Artikels klingt in amerikanischen Ohren sehr makaber, aber für Deutsche hört sich das nach einem tollen Sommerabend an. Das liegt nicht daran, dass wir so unterschiedliche Vorlieben hätten, sondern daran, dass die Deutschen sich unsere Sprache aneignen ohne einen von uns, die wirklich Englisch sprechen, zu fragen, ob das, was sie von sich geben, vielleicht Kauderwelsch sein mag. Das ist ungefähr so wie mit den Chinesen mit Migrationshintergrund in Amerika, die gutes Geld dafür ausgeben, ihre Speisekarten und Etiketten für die Büfetts professionell drucken zu lassen, aber vorher nicht auf die Idee kommen, einen der 250 Millionen Muttersprachler hier darum zu bitten, einmal einen Blick darauf zu werfen.
Jemand, der besser Italienisch kann als wir, hat einen Artikel geschrieben, in dem die Deutschifikation von „Public Viewing“ erwähnt wird, womit man im Englischen die öffentliche Aufbahrung der Leiche eines berühmten Menschen vor der Beerdigung bezeichnet. Auf Deutsch bedeutet „Paplik Fjuing“ jetzt, auf einem großen Fernseher mit 500 oder mehr Leuten kostenfrei Fußball zu gucken.
Wir wissen nicht genau, was denn eigentlich das richtige englische Wort für ein solches Vorkommnis wäre, aber die deutsche Sprache müsste doch ausdrucksstark genug sein, selbst ein geeignetes Wort für so eine Veranstaltung bieten zu können. Wir haben ein paar Vorschläge zusammengestellt, von denen sich die Deutschen eins aussuchen können:
- Mitguckgelegenheit
- Endlichmalpatriotismuszeigendürfen
- Knappbeikassekannnichtinderkneipezuschauen
Sie können gern im Kommentar Ihre eigenen deutschen Begriffe dafür beisteuern. Oder Sie können auch – da der Begriff „public viewing“ ja bereits vergeben ist – einfach einen neuen englischen Ausdruck dafür finden, der im Gegensatz zu den anderen Anglizismen im Deutschen vielleicht nichts mit Tod zu tun hat.
Wenn Ihr Beitrag im Duden veröffentlicht wird, schicken wir Ihnen ein tolles T-Shirt.
Schöne Grüße aus dem Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten,
John
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June 21st, 2008 at 5:33 am
First \o/
i did lol very much XD, but i wasn’t able to decipher the italian blog entry
June 21st, 2008 at 5:40 am
You can ever enter a contest held by the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache, who think “Public Viewing” is an abomination. The linguists, however, will simply laugh at you.
http://www.iaas.uni-bremen.de/sprachblog/2008/06/08/public-viewing/
June 21st, 2008 at 6:21 am
What about ‘Rudelgucken’?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/2/21/Rudelgucken.jpg
June 21st, 2008 at 7:49 am
The local pop station 1Live is currently pushing “Rudelgucken” as an acceptabel replacement.
I think they have a point and a chance to make it with our support.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:21 am
I have one: Gruppenglotzen!
June 21st, 2008 at 8:50 am
Thanks, Sabine. Great blog and nice to know that “Public Viewing” is one (of the few, I fear) english terms us Germans use correctly.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:54 am
I think the radio channel ‘Eins Live’ in Nordrhein-Westfalen tries to accomplish the term “Rudelgucken” instead of Public Viewing.
I hope they’re successful.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
The radio station einslive held such a contest and “Rudelgucken” won.
And if you have seen the German team in the 2nd and 3rd game you may know why we think that public viewing is the perfect term…
June 21st, 2008 at 9:01 am
Rudelgucken!
June 21st, 2008 at 9:10 am
How about “Gemeinschaftsgucken”?
Germans are always trying to show how social they are anyway, why not using a social word for watching soccergames together…
June 21st, 2008 at 9:12 am
“Rudelgucken”. I like very much.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:10 am
pillendreherbegaffen?
June 21st, 2008 at 10:34 am
I couldn’t agree more!
When visiting Germany this summer I noticed ‘Public Viewing’ for the first time (Was it around during the World Cup? Didn’t notice it then) and wondered what on earth that might be now.
I love ‘Rudelgucken’ and I really hope that it’ll catch on. German is such a beautiful and creative language. Why not use it more often?
BTW I don’t know whether you’re all blokes, but if you ever flick through a German fashion magazine you may come across ‘neckholders’, which is an item of clothing for women. My English friends never guess what it might be.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:44 am
Thanks for quoting my Italian post
For those who don’t speak Italian, the title roughly translates as “EURO 2008: macabre (linguistic) discovery”.
It tracks back to http://blogs.msdn.com/terminologie/archive/2008/06/18/public-viewing.aspx and provides a few examples of German and Swiss usage, then it explains the alternative funereal meaning of “public viewing” with a couple of English links.
It concludes by asking, is this a subliminal message for unwitting Teutonic football lovers?
As a PS, a link to yesterday’s Nothing for UnGood post - also in Italy we have this dreadful habit of (ab)using English words.
Direct link: http://blogs.technet.com/terminologia/archive/2008/06/20/euro-2008-macabra-scoperta-linguistica.aspx
June 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
>nice to know that “Public Viewing” is one (of the few, I fear) english terms us Germans use correctly.
See, I find it very hard to get worked up about the slight misuse of English in German. First, that’s simply what happens to languages; secondly, the overall English knowledge of people in Germany is really quite good; thirdly (and I know that it’s usually not English-speaking people who complain about things like Handy and Coffee to go), I’ll be happy to stop using English terms the day English-language publishers vow never to misprint any German words again. Since Jane Eyre, there hasn’t been a single book written in English and using some German that has not made egregious mistakes.
So it’s not like Germans are foolish for using English; it’s just that people are bound to make mistakes when they use another language. Oh yes, and that people, as a rule of thumb, are dumb.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
These articles are awesome! Just wanted to point that out. A German friend of mine sent me a link, and I’ve just been procrastinating this entire morning by reading all the posts. Ohh how close it hits to home.. all of it!
Looking forward to more.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:47 pm
@Sabine: Since Jane Eyre, there hasn’t been a single book written in English and using some German that has not made egregious mistakes.
Try “A Scanner Darkly”, Philip K. Dick … but that was hard to find, indeed
Coffee to go
What I really find hilarious is that “Die Welt kompakt” advertises with “Zeitung to go”. As if I would have to read any other newspaper on the spot …
June 21st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Actually I wouldn’t mind Germans misusing English words half as much if, when a native speaker attempts to point out the “mistake”, the Germans wouldn’t *insist* that, NO, their misuse is correct, as they saw it written that way. Reminds me of when a German in my English conversation class insisted that his use of “slugger” to describe me after I failed to complete as assigned task he had set for me was correct, since he had heard it used while he was on his 6-month internship in Toronto. Or when I was asked to proofread some lyrics for another student and attempted to correct the line “You make me feel rollercoastering” and was told, again, that, NO, his term was exactly what he intended and was, in fact, correct…
June 21st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I know what you mean, I politely told a German after his long presentation in America that we almost exclusively use the term “revenue” in accounting instead of “turnover”, which he had sprinkled throughout. He dismissed me right away, and let me know that I was wrong when I told him that turnover means fluktuation to us.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
You really forgot to mention that often a “Beamer” is displaying the picture a “public viewing” audience is watching. And this is what I find kind of amazing because I never expected a BMW to be capable to project images with it’s headlight.
But why are Americans using the prefix “uber” so much when they want to point out the special status of something? I presume this happens because there is no way of showing linguistic superiority in English as it is so frakking easy to learn (compared to other languages). That’s why you need to utilize foreign words to tell your opponent how much smarter you are.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
@anony, John: it would really be easier if there weren’t so many different “Englishs” (what is the plural of English?) around. Some of the misuse I have been accused of comes from the fact that I use a mixture of British and American English. I know this is bad, but since I read books from both countries I pick up a new expressions from both languages … and sometimes
it can easily be that zthose change their meaning totally when travelling over the atlantic, like “booty” or “napkin” :(.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Ironically, Americans use “über” in the same way Germans would use “super”.
And what’s with “dachshund”? No German says “Dachshund”! It’s either “Dackel” or “Teckel”!!
June 21st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
By the way, what I also don’t quite get why they keep spelling German words with “ie” in English texts wrong? I can’t count the times I’ve seen “Kreig”, “Seig” ect… It is somewhat excusable to misspell* foreign words, but this particular mistake crops up strikingly often!
*According to the Rechtschreibreform, it should be “missspell”!
June 21st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
But then at least the British media is very good at spelling “Blitzkrieg” correctly. They carefully avoided using “kreig” so far.
June 21st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I think “Rudelgucken” is fine
But I can see that we need a crazy English word for it, because it will sound so much cooler… I’m not that creative but I’ll try:
groupwatching
supertelevisioning
game enjoying
open gröhling
currywurst
June 21st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
outdoor-footballmegaevent-watching
June 21st, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I would prefer a german word, which is easy enough to understand for our foreign guest. So I recommend “Freiluftfussballfernsehübertragung”…..oh sorry “…ubertragung”
A football and language-related fun-fact. the american word for table-football is “Fussball” while germans call it “kicker”
June 21st, 2008 at 10:33 pm
This board needs an edit-function
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 am
edit function is tell me what you want changed and i will change it.
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:34 am
I’d prefer ‘Freilufttelevisionsveranstaltung’
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:38 am
By the way, I’ve always wondered why Americans call their version of rugby football. There’s neither a real ball involved nor do they strike that oversized egg with their feet.
So as long as Americans misuse English too, we shouldn’t bother about public viewing.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
moin john,
danke für das erste lachen am sonntagmorgen.
bussi astrid
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@alex: Freilufttelevisionsveranstaltung … this is great! ^^ *lol*
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hm, the McDonald Observatory also offers public viewing, and I am pretty sure they refer to their telescopes and the only bodies you can see are in the sky… http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/visitors/programs/
Maybe Americans aren’t clear on what public viewing means to themselves?
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
The US marketing experts know as little about using German correctly than vice versa. Or could somebody explain to me why dozens of auto shops call themselves “Autobahn Repair” when they really don’t do anything to repair any autobahn or freeway?
Funnily enough, “autobahn” is always good marketing in the US, while in BMW runs ads with “Sunset Blvd” in Germany…
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 am
@ Bird of Prey: I think they do that because of the different pronunciation of “ie” in English. I had quite a few problems with my last names while I was abroad in the States because they kept spelling it with an “ei” instead of an “ie” whenever I pronounced my name the German way.
Just a guess…
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:10 am
Naja, es sind ja nu auch genug deutsche worte auf Reisen:
http://www.goethe.de/ges/spa/thm/siw/de1908698.htm
btw: “über” und “super” sind sprachgeschichtilich identisch.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Schönen guten Morgen, und vielen lieben Dank für die Übersetzung. Ich bin zwar nicht Astrid, habe dennoch von der Übersetzung gebrauch gemacht. Bisher war das lesen doch recht mühselig.
Mein Vorschlag wäre “Rudelgucken”. Ich las das Wort zum ersten Mal hier
http://meggyver.com/?s=rudelgucken
June 24th, 2008 at 3:52 am
I really get a giggle out of some of the commonly used Denglish names for mundane things. Examples are “Black Music” for what we call Hip-Hop and “oldtimers” for classic cars (”Oldtimers should only be allowed on the road on Sundays or holidays.”)
On the other hand, while it’s a nice song, now I find Wayne Newton’s pronunciation of “Danke ‘Shane’” kind of cringe-worthy.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I can’t fight the German in me and have to correct you, at least a little bit.
Puplic Viewing not only means to present a dead body, but it also means to present something to a big audience in puplic, at least in british english.
for example -> “They organise public viewing sessions as part of the society’s aim to help educate the public in the science of astronomy.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/2920503.stm
there was probably no dead body around, at least i hope so.
further explanation -> http://www.iaas.uni-bremen.de/sprachblog/2008/06/08/public-viewing/
not to say i can speak better english, but i’m tired of everbody telling me the same joke. anglizism aren’t so bad as everbody wants to tell you.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
@ raven: Your second link is somewhat reminiscent of my own thoughts: Words originating from “Let’s Invent A German Word For Replacing A Denglish Word Because We Find The Latter So Annoying”- competitions seldom have much success in catching on among the general public because this words often sound a bit negative - as if the object itself was considered annoying, not the word that describes it!
June 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
@Raven: as apparently pedantry is to German humor as satire is to American, here’s a tidbit for you: “public viewing” in the context of the first example you provide is an adjective form; “public viewing” in its noun form is where the joke resides.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Hey, the US embassy uses “public viewing”
when drawing attention to the turkish german semifinal.
http://germany.usembassy.gov/warden/2008-06-24/index2.html
June 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
@Sven: Adjective form. Also, see my comment above about Germans insisting that their misuse is correct, as they saw it written that way…
June 26th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
The page has vanished. (Not unexpectedly, when i think about it now…)
Anonymous: I didn’t mean it as justification, but the other way round
September 29th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Just a late addendum. Seems like my favorite travel accessories brand (recently?) started misusing the english language as well:
http://intl.tumi.com/townhouse/hobart-slim-body-bag/
October 10th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
when i read the headline, i was like “wait…. what is this about… this blog wasn’t as morbid before…” - it took me a while to realize just what the “german interpreation” is suppossed to be, and i am german myself ^^ anyway, the misuse of “body bag” really is cringe-worthy… but it might console you that there are germans who collect those sorts of mistakes and make books out of them (for example “Happy Aua” by Bastian Sick), so not all of us actually think that a body bag is used for anything other than…. well… than a body bag…
in my opnion, what’s much much worse are all those weird kids who say stuff like “oh nein, das war ja so übelst gecheated!”, “yo, alda - das muss aber erst downgeloaded werden” and so on…
October 29th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
On the issue of proof reading:
A sign on the “Beautiful Nail’s for You” Shop down the street says:
speak perfect english
and exept Dollars
November 7th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
But let’s have a look on: http://owad.de/check.php4?id=2176&choice=3&sid=1152545
What do you say about this?
November 10th, 2008 at 11:00 am
yeah the funny use of english words…
I saw something on TV about using english expressions for job descriptions, which, even if you translate it into German, you still don´t know, what this job means…
ow but something I recognised: I mostly watch American movies in English, and I recognised something, everytime, someone is supposed to be German, and speaks German, it is, well, really crappy wrong German, so I always wondered, there are a ton of German people over in the US, why isn´t it possible to ask someone, if this German, that they got of Babelfish or so is correct? I don´t get it…
November 12th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Vorschlag für ein deutsches Wort zum Thema “im Freien Fußball schauen”: “Massen-Sauf- und Gröl-Versammlung”
November 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am
With the Germanism Sitzfleisch it’s the other way round.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sitzfleisch
November 16th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
This cell-phone is Handy!
November 16th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
We german says not Public Viewing. We say ‘Rudelgucken’
November 24th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I think most (if not all) denglish words are just terrible.
for instance:
„Ich habe vielleicht etwas Weltverbesserndes. Mein Leben ist eine giving-story. Ich habe verstanden, dass man contemporary sein muss, das future-Denken haben muss. Meine Idee war, die hand-tailored-Geschichte mit neuen Technologien zu verbinden. Und für den Erfolg war mein coordinated concept entscheidend, die Idee, dass man viele Teile einer collection miteinander combinen kann. Aber die audience hat das alles von Anfang an auch supported. Der problembewusste Mensch von heute kann diese Sachen, diese refined Qualitäten mit spirit eben auch appreciaten. Allerdings geht unser voice auch auf bestimmte Zielgruppen. Wer Ladyisches will, searcht nicht bei Jil Sander. Man muß Sinn haben für das effortless, das magic meines Stils.“ - by Jil Sander, 1997
November 27th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
What word other than “RUDELgucken” could be more appropriate to describe the real and most pure essence of Public Viewing? “Gemeinschaftsgucken” certainly not!
November 29th, 2008 at 2:47 am
Dude, you don’t know Hollywood movies?
I think the inventors of this awkward term have been inspired by the plot of “Running man” (note: still a great movie *g*) where people in near future declare “public fyyouing” as their favorite hobby.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
well… apart from the fact that you consider football boring, so public viewing (in it’s origional american meaning) is quiet appropriate, isn’t it?
BTW… who the hell - and why - limited viewing to looking at a corpse as soon as it gets public???
April 28th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
“250 million native English speakers”? That may be so, but 90% of those 250 million command a vocabulary of an incredible 87 words (I counted them). And yes, that includes the word “fyooing” which they correctly pronounce “viewing”. The rest of those “native “speakers” are tourists from the UK, who are shocked to see the kind of moronic gibberish Americans are calling “English”. Nothing for ungood
June 14th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Endlichmalpatriotismuszeigendürfen L.O.L.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Hello guys,
i can`t remember anymore how i came across on this site yesterday for i laugted the whole night because of too much sense of humour here !
Keep it up!
Here`s my 1.5 cent worth :
Public Viewing = gemeinsamfernsehguckenumzusammenstromsparen
OR//
Public Viewing = Public Fyooing
Public Fyooing = Public fuing
Public Fuing = Stinkende Publikum!