Germans have a wonderful word for that mess of wires and cables under computer workstation. It’s Kabelsalat, literally “cable salad.” In Japanese, it’s takoashi haisen, or “octopus leg wire.” Electricians sometimes refer to a tangle of wires as a snake’s honeymoon. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Cable Salad, Octopus Leg Wire, and a Snake’s Honeymoon”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. And I’ve chanced upon a handy word for that awful mess of cables under my desk. The German word for that is kabelzollet. A cable salad. Exactly.
Or given your choice of operating system, maybe apple salad. It’s a mess under there. I’m sure you have the same problem, Grant. Or apple spaghetti.
Yeah, some people do call it cable spaghetti.
Cable spaghetti.
Yeah.
Highway spaghetti is a name for a really complicated interchange.
Mm—
Yeah, yeah.
There’s Spaghetti Junction in Louisville. There’s another Japanese term for this that translates as octopus leg wire, takawashi haisen. And I gather that sometimes electricians call a mess of wires like that a snake’s honeymoon.
Snake’s honeymoon.
Ooh, that’s nice.
Well, we’d love to hear your funny names for those I hope no moments. Give us a call about that or anything related to language in your life. Language is everywhere.
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