Tsuwm's word of the day today was untermensch, which takes the German word mensch and adds the German word unter to it so that the new word means "an inferior person." Have you heard it before? I have not. It isn't in Dictionary.com and all their dictionaries, though it was in Urban Dictionary, Wiktionary, and Oxford Dictionaries.

[Corrected my mistake from Yiddish to German]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

The OED says its from German. "Mensch" is a German word; the Yiddish word is מענטש mentsh.

What goofy said. I always thought that Untermensch was the obvious counterpart to Nietzsche's Übermensch 'superman'. The Nazis said that Slavs, Jews, and Roma were Untermensch. and I am pretty sure they were speaking German and not Yiddish.

So this makes the Stuttgart suburb of Untertürkheim inferior? Hmmmm...

Untertürkheim

There is a Türkheim to the south-east of Stuttgart, and its name comes from Heim des Thüringers 'home of the Thuringians[/i].

The only etymology of Stuttgart's suburbs Obertürkheim and Untertürkheim is from an Alemannic name Duringoheim (also Drinkheim). The ober and unter probably refer to elevation. Obertürkheim is to the south of Untertürkheim. This is from the 12th century which is slightly after the Turks arrived in Anatolia. But the idea that it was named after Turks is not lost on the Stuttgarters: there is a Türkenstraße in Untertürkheim near to the Daimler AG HQ.

Did the German version of "Death of A Salesman" star Willy Üntermensch?

Yes, z and goofy, you are right about the spelling of mensch. So very sorry.

However, in all fairness, many respected citations/authors (including Leo Rosten) use them interchangeably today.

However, in all fairness, many respected citations/authors (including Leo Rosten) use them interchangeably today.

Sure, but we word lovers wish to rise above that. I have seen 19th century Yiddish books where the orthography was almost a direct transcription of German spelling. Words like schmuck are spelled that way, too, so much so that they are even pronounced differently than they are in Yiddish. There are a bunch of naturalized English words from Yiddish, and their spelling are pretty much fixed. If I wrote shmok the YIVO transcription of Yiddish שמאָק almost nobody but a person literate in Yiddish would know what I was referring to.

I am reading a great novel - and learning a little bit of German as I read it. One word that is relevant to this thread is saumensch. According to the book sau refers to pigs, and therefore the term serves to "castigate, berate or just plain humiliate a woman. Saukairl is for a man, again according to my book.

[I've learned to be specific on this site. ]

Interesting. German Sau 'sow; ace' is cognate with English sow. German Kerl 'guy, chap' is cognate with English churlish. I have not seen the spelling kairl for Kerl. Is the author providing pronunciation tips?

At some points the author does supply pronunciation tips.

Of course these are just two small examples of words he writes about. The author uses a lot of German words, which I really appreciate. It makes me feel more like I'm right there with them.

In the Red Dwarf episode Stoke me a Clipper, a German officer says what sounds like "was für ein Karl" (what a guy). I guess that was a mistake for "Kerl".

I've studied French, Italian and Spanish, but not German. I had always thought German was very different - I suppose because of the sound of the language. However, in my book (The Book Thief), I've seen how similar many of the words are to English. Many of the phrases I can understand without their translation.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

quote:

Wann die Sonne scheint, ist es kalt

When the sun shines, it is cold? I had to look it up in Google Translate because I couldn't get it - partly because it's a bit counter-intuitive, I suppose.

It's true though, in the winter.

That's right. The last few days here have been cloudy and rainy, with the temperature around 55 degrees. Today it was blue skies and sunshine, with a temperature around 45.

But wouldn't it be cold, too, if it was 45 and cloudy and rainy? It would feel even colder, I'd think. So the term doesn't make sense to me. If the sun is shining, whatever the temperature is, it's the warmest it could be at that temperature.

Eh?

When it's overcast and raining, it's normal to be cold, but when the sun is shining and it is cold, it seems colder.

As I understand it, it's warmer when there are clouds because the clouds hold in the heat.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
That's right. The last few days here have been cloudy and rainy, with the temperature around 55 degrees. Today it was blue skies and sunshine, with a temperature around 45.

Don't you in the UK use the metric system now? 45 is COOKING!

Nobody's mentioned wind chill factor.

Geoff, hiding under a rock because a tornado's on the way...

quote:

When it's overcast and raining, it's normal to be cold, but when the sun is shining and it is cold, it seems colder.

Really? That's not the case in Chicago, at least. It always seems warmer, not colder, when the sun is out.

Thank you, Geoff, for mentioning the wind chill factor. That is a huge factor - and often is present with cloudiness. Frankly, I was surprised by the answers here. Maybe they only have wind chill factors in the U.S.?

[Edited to delete the incivility .]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

We do use degrees Celsius in the UK, but I converted to Fahrenheit as that is more familiar to the majority of users of this site.

Generally, when there is a clear sky in winter the temperature will drop, particularly overnight. That's because clouds help prevent heat escaping. It might seem warmer in the winter sun, but usually the difference will only be a few degrees, less than the difference caused by lack of clouds. Of course, in late spring through to early autumn/fall the sun is strong enough to heat the air appreciably, but not in winter.

Wind chill is, as Kalleh says, a whole 'nother factor. However, that's excluded from met reports - they'll usually give something like "45 degrees, but seems like 35 because of the wind chill factor".

There are lots of great German words in The Book Thief. I loved Scheisskopf, for example - a naughty word that sounds Germanic. The author would often use German words/phrases/sentences and then translate them. However, I had to look up Scheisskopf.

Scheisskopf

There is a minor character in Catch 22 named Scheisskopf. He starts out in the novel as a lieutenant but ends up as a general.