Dutch words in general are insane. My favorite is Schildpad=turtle. Which literally means “shield Toad”
Exact same usage in German: Schildkröte.
But its not like the English language doesn’t do the exact same thing.
Most languages: Ananas
English: pineapple
Tho, I would say, even tho its piney, a pineapple is nothing like an apple.
Jokes on you, in Danish it is “Skildpadde”. “Padde” is toad, sure, but “skild” doesn’t really make any sense!
(Perhaps it is an ancient Danish word for shield (skjold), but no one would use it)
Gets even weirder in Finnish, because it’s “kilpikonna”. Someone in ye olde times just straight up translated the Swedish name. Got none of the Indo-European roots in sight, but it still makes sense. Vaguely toady creature that has shields!
(Only problem are the homonyms. “kilpi” also means registration plate, and “konna” also means “villain, thief”. So every time some random person goes around nicking plates off cars, the journalists think they are very clever again, even when the joke has been made before numerous times. Poor turtles! They don’t deserve this!)
Dutch is so whimsical. I personally giggle at winkelwagen. Winkel = shop, wagen = cart. Also, love that they say helaas pindakaas, meaning “that’s too bad”, but if literally translated means “unfortunately, peanut butter.”
Pindakaas literally translates to peanut cheese. IIRC someone trademark protected the word meaning peanut butter, thereby forcing everyone else to call it kaas (cheese) instead?!
TIL you can trademark everyday words in the NL. I need to read more about this!
Edit: turns out this is why
Something I like about the language is the homonyms.
Like pad means both toad and path, but then you have a voetpad (foot path/ foot toad), fietspad(cycling path/ bicycle toad) or a zebrapad (zebra crossing/ zebra toad).
The latter ones don’t exist, just to be clear :)
bicycle toad
The latter ones don’t exist
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