Wendy from Falls Church, Virginia, asks about a gesture corresponding to the exclamation Shame, shame! that involves scraping one index finger over the other, almost as if peeling a carrot. A German name for a similar gesture actually translates as...
Jackie in Wausau, Wisconsin, says her family used an odd word whenever someone took a sip and choked. She’s not seen it in print but suspects it’d be spelled something like furschluk. The family’s word is likely adapted from German verschlucken...
A North Carolina listener is fond of the German loanword Weltschmerz, literally “world pain,” a compound word made up of Welt, cognate with English world and Schmerz, cognate with smart as in That smarts! Coined by a 19th-century German author who...
At a South African boarding school, Rob picked up a phrase from Afrikaans that translates to land with your bum in the butter, meaning “to be lucky.” There are several variations in English — often with other words for “bum”, like...
A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, listener says when he was growing up, his family used the word schmutz as a verb. For example, when one parent reminded the other to apply sunscreen to the youngsters, they might say, Make sure you schmutz the kids...
Grace in Abilene, Texas, says her grandmother, who was of German descent, would tell children to stop sulking or pouting with a word that sounded to Grace like “mooksie.” Her grandmother was probably using a form of the German dialectal terms...
