Merkel-Raute, or Merkel rhombus, describes what German Chancellor Angela Merkel does with her hands in public. She holds her fingers together and pointing down, with thumbs touching, making a small parallelogram in front of her belly. Asked about...
Mealy-mouthed is an old phrase meaning someone’s vague, equivocal or beats around the bush. Even Martin Luther used a German version of the insult, “Mehl im Maule Behalten.” Luther, in fact, was quite experienced at tossing out...
Melissa from New Orleans, Louisiana, found herself catching flak after suggesting at Thanksgiving dinner that her family say what they were grateful for. The word traces to German anti-aircraft guns, Fliegerabwehrkanone, literally “pilot-warding-off...
A hootenanny, commonly thought of as a party in Appalachia, is also a term for German pancakes. But when you look in the Dictionary of American Regional English, you’ll notice that hootenanny is synonymous with doohickey or thingamajig, and...
Count on the Germans to have a picturesque term for a pout: Schippchen, that face you make by sticking out your bottom lip, comes from a word that means “little shovel.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “German for...
Beth from Springfield, New Hampshire, grew up with potch as both a noun and a verb for a toddler who gets into drawers, cupboards, and other trouble; a family T-shirt even dubbed her “Super Potch.” In Yiddish, potch or putch can mean a slap or...