The German publisher Langenscheidt declared smombie as the Youth Word of the Year for 2015. A portmanteau of the German borrowings smartphone and zombie, Smombie denotes someone so absorbed in their small, glowing screen that they’re oblivious to...
Restekuchen, or baked goods made with leftover ingredients, are popular in Germany, where their name translates as “scrap cake.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “German Scrap Cake” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Mary...
A caller in Hamburg, Germany, wants to know where we got the term laundry list. Grant explains that it derives from a time when people of a certain class sent their laundry out to be cleaned. It’s usually associated with a collection of things that...
Simon Ager’s site Omniglot.com is stacked with full-deckisms from around the world. In English-speaking countries, someone who’s not quite with it is said to be “two sandwiches short of a picnic.” In Germany, however, this is described with the...
in the bag other.— «After a year training at Burnham Military Camp and in Egypt, he found himself in Crete and “in the bag,” as they called it, a prisoner of war on a bitter journey to the “hell camp” in Germany called Stalag VIIIB.» —“Love and...
Wagnolater n.— «They are a rare breed, those rabid fans of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, and right now, they are angry.…While some Ringheads or Ringnuts, as they are called, took the change in stride, others were not shy about expressing their frustration...