• InternationalBastard@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Non native English speaker here. So I get that a screwdriver is vodka + orange juice. And I get he is drinking it out of Phillips skull. Still don’t get the punchline.

      • InternationalBastard@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thanks, never heard that name before. In my mother tongue it goes by the simple name of ‘Kreuzschlitzschraubendreher’ and that is no joke.

        • theodewere@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          and that name actually makes sense, like EVERYTHING in Deutsch! because it is a ‘Cross Slotted Screwdriver’… in English American, we venerate Mr. Phillips every single day, amen… whoever he was…

          • TipRing@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I didn’t know the term for that kind of screwdriver in German, but I speak it enough that if someone asked me for one, I’d know what they meant because the name is descriptive. In English, not so much.

              • TipRing@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Ok, so without looking (and forgive me my vocabulary is really lousy from disuse)

                My strategy for compound words is usually to try to break up the word, starting at the end, since mostly they are nouns with a bunch of adjectives stuck in front.

                Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

                So kapitän is easy since it’s a near cognate for captain.

                Gesellschaft looks like a word i used to know, but I can’t remember it.

                Schiffahrt - i don’t know this one, but it looks like schiff (ship) plus fahren (to go) - shipping?

                Ampf - no clue

                Donaud - I feel like this must be modifying ampf, because it doesn’t look like a word on its own, but since I don’t know ampf I am stumped.

                So my guess is someone in charge of something to do with shipping.

                  • TipRing@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Ah. That makes sense, I wasn’t thinking about proper names and split the word in the wrong spot. Still i think german compound words aren’t that big of a deal once you get used to parsing them.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They take existing words and slap them together to make new ones. For example, a turtle is a shield toad and gloves are hand shoes.