Could anyone help with the origin of the German phrase: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof? My German friend says the translation is: I understand only train station. We'd like to find out what a "station" like a train station has to do with letting someone know that you don't understand what they're talking about.
This came up when I said something to my friend that she didn't understand, and she asked, "Train station?" This, of course got our discussion going, trying to figure out what "station" has to do with not understanding.
Thanks for your help!
I don't have a proven, scholarly source of German etymological information. But less formal sources (more than a few) say this:
It comes from World War 1 soldiers. The train station represented the way home after their service was complete. So whenever they couldn't understand some order (presumably over the radio) they would say, hopefully, that all they understood was “train station.â€
Soon the expression came to mean either that you CAN'T understand what you heard, or you don't WANT to understand what you heard.
It reminds me of Hogan's Heroes, but that is set a whole war later.
Can someone confirm or refute this etymology?
From what I just read in German..in the WWI the only thing the German soldiers would understand was 'Bahnhof' (train station) since that was their ticket to go home.
The 'Bahnhof' became the symbol for holidays at home, and every conversation that did not have 'Die Heimat' as the subject was warded off by saying: "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof" (I only understand trainstation).
It is still used in today's German but with a different meaning like 'too many foreign words, I only understand trainstation' or just 'I dont understand'.
Welcome, Beth! And how fascinating -- I've never heard this. I'd love to know more about it.
Thank you for the welcome, and for the helpful information. Very interesting!