this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
537 points (98.9% liked)

Microblog Memes

6713 readers
2244 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 27 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In Romanian, "prince charming" literally translates to "pretty fetus".

In my experience, Romanians tend to react to being confronted with this fact by going quiet for a while and then trying to tell you that this is not strictly incorrect but there's more to it, and then they try to explain it away and then they go quiet again.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just did it to a Romanian friend and I could just see the writing dots on the screen for a while. Success

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

I swear, it's the exact same reaction every time. It's amazing, like a culture-wide Manchurian Candidate activation code.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This says it's actually "tip-toe goose" which . . . also good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

企业 seems to mean "business / company / corpo / firm" and my dictionary says 企 is also an abbreviation for it. So I guess that's how we get to the OP's joke. I'm guessing 鹅企 would be read "Goose Corp." then ?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (5 children)

"Hippo" in German translates as "The horse of the Nile". It's such a fun language, with its word combinations.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Got a thing without name? I present "-Zeug"!

  • Fly thing? Flugzeug
  • Fire thing? Feuerzeug
  • Thing you need for work? Werkzeug
  • The things that you punch to make sounds? Schlagzeug
  • Unidentified things? Zeug

I love German.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It sounds like an Orc saying “zug.”

“Me take TPS report zug to work zug.”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

No, a Zug ist a train. And it's probably late

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Basically the same in English-- the etymology is PIE through Greek and Latin meaning river horse. Historians call horse/chariot stadiums from ancient Greece hippodromes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Still called river horse in Swedish (flodhäst), not exclusive to the Nile though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Lemmy told me that raccoon in German literally translates as "washing bear" and I still think about that at least once a week

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

Wash Rat in French

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

Its true for Dutch, so I'm sure it's true for German as well, in Dutch it's called a wasbeer

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

hurr hurr twat bear

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Can confirm, Waschbär in German.

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

de wasbeer im de kukstooel

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

It's an amazing language. My favorite is the word for contraceptive pills: antibabypille!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Wait till you learn what “airplane”, “lighter”, and “tool” are.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

I have this with the Spanish translation of toes. Dedos de los pies. The literal translation would be fingers of the foot.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In Japanese a thermos bottle is called 魔法瓶/Mahoubin, which literally translated means magic bottle.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

They love their magic stuff in Japan. They call velcro "magic tape".

One of my favorites from Japanese is that they call mons pubis the "shame/embarassed hill" (恥丘), because of course they have to be weird about it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

It's beyond weird, you see this in lots of places where the patriarchy influenced society and language to this point of control and inequality between the sexes. Only in recent years where i live have these terms been changed in favor of a more equal view on genders with language that reflects that to go with it.

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

It seems like tape is more magical than Velcro.

edit: s/that/than/