My mother used to tell me something that her mother (who had German parents) used to tell her, and I would like to know if anyone else has heard of it.
It's - "Ach de Himmel de Liebekens"
I wrote the first part in German, but that last part, "de Liebekens", is unclear to me. Â (The "kens" is pronounced as a North American would pronounce: "kinz".) I once asked a Swiss friend if she'd heard of something like this, and she said that she's heard of "Ach de Himmel de Liebe Gute" (umlaut on the "u"), but she couldn't figure out what the "kens" would refer to.
Do you know what the last part of the expression my grandmothers said might be? Has anyone else heard this expression?
This book   has a long passage describing  a beautiful maiden, and then: Â
She was Fritz's liebeken, and Fritz was a passable judge of female beauty.
So, could that be- a knockout chick.
--------------
I have trouble linking it, but Google book finds it with "Liebekens."
 Lieb is loving in liebfraumilch, loving mother's milk
Ken is child.
I suspect it means girlfriend or wife. Â Love is blind, but this guy wants arm candy, not love.
I'm no German scholar, but I would suspect it might be du rather than de, and would also guess that Liebekens might be a variant or corruption of Liebchen.
Could just be a family version or a gradually altered version of Ach du lieber Himmel.
My German-born grandma had lots of tangled part-German sayings, like "Vibbldi-Vobbldi, Was ist das? Â Unter den Kitchen Sink?"