this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025

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261

German rule (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (10 children)

I love how the Germans use zeuge.

Tools? Those are work things. (Werkzeuge)

Airplanes? You know, flying things! (Flugzeuge)

Vehicles? Duh, the driving things! (Fahrzeuge)

Why make new word when two (or six) words will do?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

compoundwords are marvelous <3

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

coumpoundwordsareamarvelouszeuge.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No, compound words are usually just compound nouns. Exactly the same as in English, except the space is missing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

English does that too sometimes, look at the "closed" compounds:

https://eslforums.com/compound-words/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

i really dont like that "compound word" is not a proper compoundword.

i hope my mispelling spreads far enough to remedy this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Good point, Küchenentlüftungsschießeinrichtung

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's 3:30 AM and I'm giggling like an asshole

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

To convince someone? Over-thing them. (überzeugen)

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

German here. That's an entirely different word, with a different word stem and history, despite being spelled exactly the same.

Also completely unrelated to Zeugen (witnesses) and zeugen (conceive).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fascinating

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Honestly, I love this language. And I fully understand anyone who hates it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Like... Fire things, green things, bed things, playing things and hundreds of other things. Love it almost as much as animals that are just something-animal. Like bag-animal (marsupial), beak-animal (platypus) or belt-animal (armadillo).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

An armadillo is just an Illo with a gun

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

I think it's fun how Zeug has gone from a technical meaning to a cute one.

The current meaning of Zeug is something like stuff or unimportant things.

It used to mean kit, gear or equipment though, which makes a lot of sense and is still visible in words like Zeugwart (equipment manager of a sports team or army).

With that knowledge, Werkzeug would just be a tool kit.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Same thing in Norwegian with "tøy" (verktøy, fly, kjøretøy, plus fartøy for water-faring vessels) … and then tøy by itself means cloth or clothes (also available through klestøy)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You can translate Zeug with thing.

Workthingy

Flythingy

Drivethingy

...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Witnesses? They're just ... things. (Zeugen)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

the base noun is really "Zeug"