Last year I was obsessed briefly with German words with three repeated letters in them – Flussschifffahrt, Seeelefant, Fussballlandesspiel, etc. Most recently it has occurred to me that my Kollegin who kindly makes me a brew in the mornings as I get into school could be referred to as a Teeengel – tea angel.
I was aided and abetted in my quest for cool German words by German friends I met in my summer choir and who now drop by on Facebook every so often to share a gem.
In my inbox this evening was this most charming video.
It all started with Schifffahrt, a fab word with a ridiculous triple F brought to you by the Neuschreibregeln in the late 90s. Earlier spelling rules said that triple letters that are the logical consequence of joining Schiff to Fahrt, should in fact just have the two, because, you know, that would sensible.
Then, after I did most of my German learning, the orthographic reform came in, throwing everything I knew into confusion and making the difference between long and short vowels crucial into whether you use ß or not, and adding in triple consonants if they are logically there.
For a while I was under the misapprehension that it was Grossstadt, but Duden says it has to be Großstadt.
But talking about Schifffahrt recently has unearthed other German friends’ favourite three-consonant words:
But when I showed some of the stories to German friends on choir week, it was a completely new one to them – and they pointed me in the direction of the Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher. You can see one of those in the video below.
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