in Germany[...]

Turns of Phrase: Denglisch
-------------------------------------------------------------------
It's open to debate whether this is really an English word, though it has been seen in a number of English-language publications in recent months, because it was actually coined in German. Its first letter comes from 'Deutsch', the German for 'German'. It refers to the hybrid German-English fashionable speech of younger Germans, heavily influenced in particular by American English.

It's perhaps only to be expected that computerese such as 'e-mail' and 'homepage' are standard (even 'computer', which has pushed out the native 'Rechner', and 'webmaster', which is used instead of 'Webmeister'). Outside computing, you may encounter 'contemporary', 'task force', 'party', 'shopping', 'goalgetter', and 'sales' among many others. On German railways, you will find 'service points', 'ticket counters' and 'lounges'.

Many Germans have been angered by what they see as the linguistic imperialism of such imports. Some, such as Eckart Werthebach, the Christian Democrat interior minister, have called for a language purification law to ban them; others have suggested an Academy for the Cultivation and Protection of the German Language, similar to the Académie Française. What annoys them especially is the way that English words infiltrate otherwise normal German sentences. A notable example was a notice seen at a German airport: "Mit dem 'stand-by-upgrade-Voucher' kann das 'Ticket' beim 'Check-in' aufgewertet werden".

This movement wants to impose hefty fines on any German caught using the bastardised tongue known as 'Denglisch'. [Observer, Mar. 2001]

Werthebach's plan has sparked a national debate over whether the language of the printing pioneer Johann Gutenberg and poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe is in danger of being diluted into the German- English mixture now known as Denglisch. [Reuters, Mar. 2001]




Excerpt from:
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 230 Saturday 31 March 2001
Editor: Michael Quinion ISSN 1470-1448 Thornbury, Bristol, UK
http://www.worldwidewords.org Mail: editor@worldwidewords.org


I particularly love the sign board example! ~ and also the delightful irony of young German trendies adopting 'webmaster' whilst young Anglo trendies might well use 'webmeister'. The webs of linguistic fashion...