It's not just parts of the body that have misleading or silly names in German; the conditions do, too.
When I was a student in Germany, I remember hearing two little old women talking to each other at a bus stop. "Ich habe Zucker," said one of them. "Ach, du Arme," the other replied.
I wondered what was so bad about having sugar. After all, I've got sugar in my cupboard, too.
It was later that I found out that 'sugar' was the German way of saying 'diabetes'. "Ich habe Zucker" means "I have diabetes". Weird or what?
But that is topped by the word 'Hexenschuss' - a witch's shot. A witch has shot you and now you have lower back pain. Or in other words 'lumbago', based on the word for that part of the back: the lumbar region.
So when a patient runs into a doctor's surgery runs into the practice yelling, "Helfen Sie mir, Frau Doktor. Ich habe einen Hexenschuss," you'll know that it's nothing worse to worry about than a bit of back pain and you don't have to fear being turned into a frog by the same person who 'shot' them.
Here one can see the German influence on Finnish, as both lumbago and "Zucker" are the same in my mother tongue. "Witch's arrow" and "Sugar disease". / M.
ReplyDeleteHere one can see the German influence on Finnish, as both lumbago and "Zucker" are the same in my mother tongue. "Witch's arrow" and "Sugar disease". / M.
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