Comment by Vittelius@feddit.org on How are there so many of them

It’s the German version of me_irl. Stands for “Ich _ im echten Leben” and is a direct translation of the English

Bless you sir or madam, you know not how long I have suffered

It also incorporates c/memes, basically

Omg I was reading it as “ich lel” not “ich iel” this whole time 😅 thanks

I’ve internally been saying “eesh eel”

… which now seems like calling it "me earl’

It is pretty close on the pronunciation, except ch is not sh. Unless you’re speaking certain regional dialects :)

I’ve only ever met a few native Germans in person, and understand just enough to get to the bathroom, so I don’t know if I just misheard, or they’re one of the few people who do say it that way.

I’ll take any native German’s word on their own language though! Lol or even anyone who’s studied.

I’m a German native who studied linguistics (ok, computational linguistics with a minor in phonetics and phonology), but I basically only speak my regional dialect well. I was visiting a friend in Berlin once and a stranger in a bar complimented me that I “speak good German for a foreigner”.

Hey that sounds like studying linguistics to me! ^Pun ^mildly ^intended.

That’s gotta be a bit of a gut punch though…

The closest pronunciation you can get in English is probably eek.

Aww, thanks! Consider me slightly more educated than when I awoke this morning :)

Oh my god, you’re woke!

Whoops, guess I’m now the enemy of a hundred million Americans

My bad

it is only me_irl in name though, it is a general meme / conversational community with the obnoxious (and over used to death) in joke that is zangendeutsch.

It’s not overused if its funny. And it is very funny

Dutchie who speaks German here, I hadn’t heard of the word ‘Zangendeutsch’ before. I get what it means, but why ‘Zangen’? Does it come from tongs or does it have another meaning? Tongs-German makes no sense to me

German here, no idea what it has to do with a Zange

“Zangendeutsch” means an aggressive way of removing the influence of english into the german language. But outside of ich_iel we write in english as everyone. Which is obviously a little bit weird, isn’t it?

No, that’s wrong. Zangendeutsch is all about English influence and playfully literal translations even when there are better German words. So you need to translate it back to English and into German again to decode it and that’s the fun about it.

So is that the “Zange”? Because you need to go from the things you are holding (the information, in “German”) to the hinge (the literal English translation) and back down again (actual German translation) to understand (aka grasp it)‽

I’m not sure if I understood your deduction. The literal translation of “Zange” would be “tongs”, “pliers” or “pincer”. Hinges are the things that make doors swing and hold to a wall right?

Multiple source say the origin of the word isn’t documented but the best explanation they come up with is that pliers can be used to bend something into a different form.

My guess was it has its origin in the proverb “Das würde ich nicht mal mit der Kneifzange anfassen” which translates to “I wouldn’t even touch that with pliers” as in stuff you detest that much that you rather would stay away from it.

What annoys me personally about it (to the point that i blocked the commonity) is that it is mandatory. That’s not humor, or funny, that is weird performative scripted humor. I often felt reminded of carnival speeches.

I’d also argue that it isnt very successful in clearing anglicisms from the german vernacular when it is all about making the most incorrect and cryptic literal translation imaginable to the point that nobody could understand unless they are well versed in those anglicisms.

They’re making English a linguistic dependency for German? lol

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How are there so many of them(lemmy.world)

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