Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Alle Dackel umsonst gebissen. Don Osman auf Tour. Geschichten aus dem deutschen Alltag. Don Osmans erster Fall. Neue Geschichten von Don Osman. Die Harald Schmidt Show. SAT 1, Knorr, Peter et al. Das Erstbeste aus 30 Jahren. Adolf — Ich bin wieder da!! Adolf — Ich bin schon wieder da! Die Wiederentdeckung des Gehens beim Wandern. Vito von Eichborn, Boje Buck Produktion, Adam Boudoukis and Moritz Bliebtreu. Pro 7, 8 Mar. Assmann, Aleida, and Ute Frevert.
Vom Umgang mit deutschen Vergangenheiten nach Rabelais and His World. Die Lichtspielzensur in der Weimarer Republik: Beth Linklater and Birgit Dahlke. Exemplarische Fallstudien zur Funktion des Komischen. Doubleday Anchor, orig. Heike Bartel and Elizabeth Boa.
DDR-Konsumkultur in den 60er Jahren. Zeiten des Wandels GDR Theatre Censorship, Budzinsky, Klaus, and Reinhard Hippen. Autorinnen aus der DDR — inoffiziell publiziert. Gaby Pailer et al. Degler, Frank, and Ute Paulokat. Foell, Kristie and Jill Twark. Dealing with the Stasi.
Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman. Jill Twark 21 Freud, Sigmund. Berlin Magazin 12 Comedy in the Weimar Republic: A Chronicle of Incongruous Laughter. Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies Westport, CT and London: London and New York: Hall, Peter Christian, ed. Mainzer Tage der Fernseh-Kritik Vol. Vom Mangel zum Massenkonsum. Heil Hitler, das Schwein ist tot! Lachen unter Hitler — Komik und Humor im dritten Reich. Eichborn, Dead Funny: Jefferson Chase, New York: U of Massachusetts P, Format — Konzeption — Drehbuch — Umsetzung.
Gab es die DDR wirklich? The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture. Queens U at Kingston, Medienwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf ein TV-Format. Der Monarch im Skandal. Die Logik der Massenmedien und die Transformation der wilhelminischen Monarchie. Linklater, Beth and Birgit Dahlke, eds. Contemporary German Writers Series. U of Wales P, Karikatur und Zensur in der DDR. Body and Narrative in Contemporary Literatures in German. Writing in the Berlin Republic. Die Welt 29 June That Was the Wild East: U of Michigan P, Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich.
Amsterdam and New York: Joseph II, and James H. Harvard Business School P, Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie. Roland Conrady and Martin Buck. The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism. The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust. And Best Nazi Humor. Aus der Staatsgegnerschaft entlassen. The Case of Anders als die Andern. Comic Savagery in the Theatre of Kerstin Hensel. A German and Hispanic Perspective. Fernando de Diego and Agatha Schwartz.
U of Ottawa, The Ambiguity of Play. Normalization and the Berlin Republic. Taberner, Stuart, and Paul Cooke. Stuart Taberner and Paul Cooke. Humor, Satire, and Identity: Eastern German Literature in the s. Wichner, Ernest, and Herbert Wiesner. Podoby a premeny vychodneho Nemecka v nemeckej proze po roku [Falling Walls: Univerzita Mateja Bela, Zivier, Georg, et al.
At issue for eastern Germans was the sensitive negotiation between maintaining a sense of their own cultural heritage as eastern Germans and adapting to a western German mentality, a process of self-discovery complicated by the feeling that the West was colonizing the East. Among these individuals are those who were born in Germany and have German citizenship, those who came to Germany as guest workers but remained citizens of their home countries, those who came to Germany illegally, and those who came to Germany seeking asylum.
Satirical humor from this immediate postwall period illuminates these divisions and rivalries, caricaturing the participants in their ongoing identity negotiations and thereby depicting an eastern German identity based on what eastern Germans should not become, as seen from the viewpoint of the caricaturists: Stuart Hall writes that identities are constructed through, not outside difference. His definition applies particularly well to the case of eastern Germans, whose identity remains in flux after over twenty years as Bundesdeutsche citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Indeed, the recent twentieth anniversaries of the opening of the Berlin Wall and unification have prompted much reflection among eastern Germans as to how they have felt since their country was dissolved: In the immediate postwall period, this group sought solace first as western Germans, then as Bundesdeutsche, then finally as eastern Germans in a unified German context. As popular cultural artifacts, their reach into German society was significant. Unofficially, the readership was far higher, as subscribers passed along their copies to friends and family.
Sometimes it seemed to abandon any pretense of critique altogether. There was an emphasis on sexual humor and an abundance of amateur photographs of nude women with a deliberately rural aura to them. In the GDR, cultural policy dictated that satirists support socialism in that they focus on the behavior of the individual, as opposed to that of the collective Neubert 7.
This reaction reaffirms the importance of context. Getting eastern and western Germans en masse into that mindset beyond a temporary relocation, however, has proved difficult. Furthermore, because unification was not kind to many eastern Germans, it compounded their overall inferiority complex. Their presence disrupted the neatness of the East-West dialogue that began with the Mauerfall fall of the Berlin Wall. One question was and still remains central to this debate: Today, German citizenship is still based on jus sanguinis, although the process of naturalization was eased somewhat with the revised German nationality law, which came into effect in the year Tes Howell 33 help re define a German national identity?
This hierarchy surfaced in jokes about Ossis eastern Germans and Wessis western Germans reproduced in published collections and on countless Internet websites. The following joke encapsulates the situation: This joke perpetuates several widespread stereotypes: Der lebt auf unsere Kosten. Henri Bergson viewed such humor as a discursive weapon against breaches of propriety. According to Bergson, laughter at the comic, though it may briefly induce sympathy , is ultimately corrective in nature: There was, indeed, a strong social-corrective thrust to eastern German humor in the s, as had been the case in the GDR.
All texts discussed 11 Literature in East Germany was seen by socialist leaders, as well as many authors and artists, as an unambiguous tool that should assist in building a new, socialist society. A gesture, therefore, will be its reply. Laughter must be something of this kind, a sort of social gesture. By the fear which it inspires, it restrains eccentricity. By exaggerating the potential impact of extreme right-wing groups and their nationalistic discourse in satirical texts and cartoons, Eulenspiegel humorists took a stand against the disastrous effects of racism and fear. The worst fears of the evolving eastern German society are depicted in their texts: Tes Howell 37 Figure 1 that eastern Germans faced from a group whose members they had perceived as being the least likely to discriminate against them, particularly from a dominant position.
The Vietnamese in eastern Germany, for example, maintained a reputation that they had acquired in the GDR for industriousness and dedication to their jobs Siemons They subsequently gained an advantage after over the newly unemployed eastern Germans in seeking employment in such low- paying occupations as street vending, bricklaying, textile production, and factory work.
In fact, their presence was seen as provocative in the East, a provocation that quickly turned into violence as eastern German youths in particular realized that unification had actually brought them very little. Prior to the March election in East Germany, the first and only free parliamentary election there, some pundits believed that this party would gain a strong foothold in what were to become the five new Federal States. Up to this point, Schulz has ironically claimed to address a right-wing audience, because the Eulenspiegel is generally leftist in its approach to contemporary German politics and society.
The song does not disappoint in its right-wing message: Da sind wir deutsch wie die vom Rhein,13 Dem stopfen wir das Maul voll und mausert sich ein rotes Schwein14 — Reis, das schlagen wir zu Quark! Europa — das ist hier, uns schmeckt nur deutsches Bier. Tes Howell 41 After reading this song, Eulenspiegel readers were probably somewhat alarmed: In the note, Schulz explains why such a violent, racist text was included in the then current issue, just in case the reader did not understand the ironic message of the cartoon to the right, when combined with the song: The note thus serves to deflect responsibility for the content: Schulz makes an alarmist statement about the potential growth of right-wing extremists in the former GDR, while simultaneously avoiding being labeled a racist and a Republikaner sympathizer.
Two reader reactions to the song testify to a favorable reader reception, although the overall paucity of published responses to such an inflammatory piece is surprising. One reader from Magdeburg named Dietmar Swienty wrote: Sleeping with his wife would thus be an expedient way to dishonor the Turk. Schulz still felt compelled to disclaim any connection to it. This inflammatory song only begins to make sense satirically in connection with the cartoons flanking it on the right and bottom. The image on the right is of a boorish-looking German man, dressed in a pea coat decorated with a swastika pin, with a closely shaved head, large nose and ears, close-set, almost crossed eyes, a toothbrush moustache resembling that worn by Adolf Hitler, and beard stubble, set against the backdrop of the unified German flag.
Also created by Volker Schulz, the image is offset by its caption, written in Fraktur, a font widely used in German- speaking territories from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century: This cartoon adds another layer of meaning to the song—that REP supporters are not only violent and belligerent, but they are also unintelligent. Below both the song and the portrait of the oafish German male is a cartoon by Paul Pribbernow depicting a diminutive man, apparently of African descent, standing with arms at his sides on a scooter being pulled quickly along a track by a rope though the pulling mechanism is not visible and wearing a modern t-shirt with palm trees on it implying his equatorial country of origin.
He looks ahead obliviously as beefy Nazis or neo-Nazis with billy clubs bolt from the gates at a racetrack resembling the kind used for greyhound races. Such uniforms were, and are still today, worn by German neo-Nazis. The cartoon powerfully blends three conceptual spaces: The skinheads likely represent eastern German youth and its growing xenophobic tendencies, tendencies that are, ultimately, residues of fascism.
In the fictional world of the caricature, Hitler is still pulling the strings— even from the grave. The overarching goal of this Eulenspiegel page is to expose right-wing extremists as primitive bullies, as well as to condemn the prevalent racism and its destructive potential in eastern Germany in particular and Germany in general. Taken out of context, however, especially in the case of the song, the reader may be left to wonder how each text qualifies as satire as a letter writer named G. Only taken together can the reader understand each text as satirical commentary on contemporary German society, intended to ridicule and correct the xenophobic tendencies that right-wing extremists fostered among some eastern Germans, youths in particular.
The cartoon illuminates a hybrid space for new, postwall German counter-narratives, which defied harmonious governmental and media representations of the unification process in both East and West. However, in the s, Turkish youth co-opted it, using it to denote not only a cultural, but also a discursive, community, as a sociolect particular to the Turks residing in Germany Zaimoglu Thus begins his journey through a Kafkaesque labyrinth of bureaucracy, during which he loses his job and, debatably, his sanity.
A modern-day fool, Engin is continually a victim of his circumstances and cannot navigate the system well enough to vindicate himself. Engin grants the reader access to the experience of living with this threat. Engin and Leckmikowski are thus competitors in a truly capitalistic endeavor. But Yusuf refuses to play this game, for money talks in post- unification Germany and can alter the parameters and rules of any given community.
He can only threaten Leckmikowski with a cucumber, while the eastern German threatens him with deportation and xenophobic violence: Auf dem Gebiet kenne ich mich bestens aus. Ich habe genug Philippinos aus der DDR rausgejagt! Indeed, it only seems to reify his position as Other in the transformation from two German communities to one: Satire hat ohnehin nur ein gesellschaftspolitisches Anliegen.
Satire dient dazu, auf Punkte zu zeigen, die nicht richtig sind, die menschenfeindlich oder menschenverachtend sind. Satire selbst kann den Zustand ja nicht verbessern. Conclusion After the dynamic transformations of the Wende period and the unification process caused great uncertainty for eastern Germans, unleashing long-simmering resentments, anxieties, and rivalries.
Humorists used this volatile time to reflect on existential questions and the potential for correction of uncivil behaviors, prompted, among other causes, by xenophobia, because, although eastern and western Germans had their difficulties reuniting, they always recognized each other as fellow Germans. Tes Howell 51 German affairs and who never had a chance to achieve political representation in the GDR, were forced to compete with East Germans for recognition as equal citizens in the new bundesdeutsche reality.
By presenting humorous texts with such sharp commentary on contemporary culture, humorists were able to draw attention to these failures and successes, ultimately aiding in the discursive creation of an eastern and unified German identity that was more tenable, through its rectitude and complexity, than what grew organically out of the unification process.
Onlein und in Farbe. Secondary Sources Ayim, May.
Heimat und Einheit aus afro-deutscher Perspektive. An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. MacMillan and Green Integer, orig. Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation. The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, The Society of Authors Autumn Representing East Germany since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia.
American Culture in Europe: Nation and Migration, U of California P, Character and Satire in Postwar Fiction. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay. Die Schuld der DDR. The Case of Eastern German Humor. U of California-Berkeley, Tes Howell 53 Jaschke, Hans-Gerd. Warum Ost- und Westdeutsche aneinander vorbeireden. Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. The Grammar of Visual Design. Anderssein gab es nicht. Die Wandlung des Juvenal. Satire zwischen gestern und morgen. Deutschlandradio Kultur 28 May Go for Zucker, , Swiss director Dani Levy, who has been living in Berlin for decades, broke one of the longest-standing taboos of post German cinema: It is presumed that if a Jewish director spins a humorous story around Jewish characters, Jewish humor must be in play.
The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler, , displays few instances of specifically Jewish humor and thus fails to produce a similar array of complex and ambivalent subject and object positions. The purpose of this chapter is first to outline several characteristics attributed to Jewish humor in traditional and more recent scholarship. These features will then serve as a framework for exploring the wit that pervades Alles auf Zucker! Both in terms of content and technique, Alles auf Zucker!
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Establishing the type of humorous lens through which these relations are screened is critical, not only because it aids in understanding the mostly favorable reception this unlikely comedy has enjoyed in twenty-first century Germany and around the world,5 but also because it offers insights into the status of German-Jewish relations and Jewish life in Germany today from the perspective of this minority group. He owes money to many lenders, has troubled relationships with his wife and children, and is in danger of gambling his way into homelessness. In fact, it took Levy over three years to secure financing for the film Biehl.
After initially rejecting the script, the German broadcasting company Westdeutscher Rundfunk WDR finally decided to take on the project in Can the Shoah Be Funny? Some Thoughts on Recent and Older Films. If the brothers cannot reconcile, the money will be donated to the Jewish community in Berlin. As mentioned above, much like humor in general, Jewish humor had until recently been the subject of many anthologies but only limited scholarly debate. Even after few instances of Jewish humor can be found there. Broder, and the author Esther Dischereit. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the vast immigration of Russian Jews to Germany in the s, however, Jewish artists, intellectuals, and authors are beginning to gain a more prominent voice in Germany, above all in its capital, Berlin.
The past two decades have been a period in which eastern and western Germans have had to negotiate their coexistence and reunification. In addition, Germans from the former East and West have had to adjust to an increase in minority residents and citizens, including Jews, whose population has grown from 10,, in to an estimated , today Knobloch. The reemergence of Jewish humor not only informs us about the status of these renegotiations, but it can also help set the tone for future efforts to establish a more normalized coexistence marked by mutual tolerance and respect.
What is it and how does it differ from other types of humor? It is also worth noting that the remarkable influx of the nineties has stalled since Germany limited the immigration of Russian Jews with the Immigration Act of Normalization and the Berlin Republic in Taberner traces the history of the term back to the Kohl era and highlights its particular importance for unified Germany.
It includes the idea that because Germany continues to express remorse regarding its World War II and Holocaust crimes, it should be allowed to move beyond these admissions of guilt and to establish itself as a democratic, liberal, and tolerant nation. Particularly the dialectical workings of Jewish humor allow Alles auf Zucker! In most discussions of Jewish humor, only one side of it is highlighted: Others, such as Edmund Bergler, Martin Grotjahn, and George Mikes, have supported the thesis that Jewish humor has a distinctly self-mocking and self-derogatory character, in which hostility or aggressiveness manifests itself in a masochistic way—that is, it is turned against the Jew himself.
Another critical characteristic of Jewish humor, however—the other side of the coin, really—is overlooked by these and other scholars. In The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious Freud points out that, while there certainly is self-denigration in this humor, it goes hand in hand with a dialectical component of self-identification and self-praise that works in the opposite direction: Various forms of spelling exist: There are numerous instances in which Alles auf Zucker!
The strict rules to which he subjects himself and his family as well during the shiva provide him with the stability and security that he lost when his relationship with his girlfriend and cousin Jana ended ten years ago. While Levy criticizes the fact that Joshua does not really lead a Jewish life, but rather uses his faith to escape from it, the film also shows the motivation for this move, which in turn evokes understanding and empathy with the character and his plight.
Along with this critique-cum-sympathy dynamic particular to Jewish humor, most scholars also mention the main topics and stock characters employed regularly in Jewish jokes. Jewish humor traditionally targets backwardness, intolerance, greed, and hypocrisy Richter All family members, in fact, join in the hypocrisy of pretending to live an orthodox Jewish life and to observe the rules of the shiva.
His irate reaction to the traffic holdup is followed by a lightning flash— presumably a sign from above—and prayers from Joshua. On another occasion, when the two families say a prayer before dinner together, Joshua continues to pray after everyone else has stopped. In addition, Alles auf Zucker! While these stock personalities appear throughout the film, the most interesting character is the protagonist, Jackie Zucker, from whose perspective the story is told.
Jackie belongs to the tradition of one of the central and most constant characters in Jewish comedy: One might even venture to say that he emerges as a hero of sorts, one whose persona evinces the aforementioned critical dynamics of Jewish humor. We must thus now turn our attention to this typical Jewish prankster. The Schlemiel Jackie Zucker The schlemiel began as a common wit in the Middle Ages, but his utility as a metaphor for European Jewry was later recognized by Jewish raconteurs: In the context of complex eastern and western German and German-Jewish relations, which are often framed in terms of loser-victor and victim-perpetrator dynamics, this dialectical schlemiel protagonist becomes particularly intriguing and holds critical meaning for the understanding of this film.
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How, then, does Levy paint Jackie Zucker as a schlemiel, and what implications do these schlemiel qualities have for his cinematic production? On several occasions in Alles auf Zucker! Later, while high on Ecstasy pills mistaken for aspirin, he admits again to being an idiot for having turned his back on his daughter Jana when she became pregnant and could no longer compete in athletics championships.
Jackie thus emerges as a prime example of the fool, whose weaknesses give cause for laughter. Choosing to stay out late, gamble, and squander the family savings, he does not think about the effects his actions will have on his family. It is important to note, however, that he was born Jewish and ultimately returns to the Jewish faith at the end of the film. It is also fitting that—just like the eastern German Jackie Zucker—the schlemiel is often thought of as a character from the East Patai viii. In fact, it can be argued that his rediscovered faith may be more genuine because it is born out of sincere internal and external struggles, rather than blind acceptance of religious and cultural traditions.
Eventually, his foolishness and lies lead to his undoing, exemplified by his physical collapse, which occurs precisely at the moment in which his deceptions are about to be revealed by his wife Marlene. Conversely, when he finally begins to open up and communicate, not just with his wife and children, but also with his brother and his extended family, his health begins to improve as well.
Only after Jackie undergoes this transformation can his brother Samuel respond by expressing his understanding and willingness to help. A corresponding healing between eastern and western Germany, Levy implies in the film, will require similar efforts in opening channels of communication, recognition, and acceptance. This organ typically refers as much to the emotional and spiritual as to the moral core of a human being. Like his forbears, Jackie, too, has a heart condition. When father and daughter finally confront their aforementioned rift, Jana asks him: Hast du noch eins? German and Jewish-German relations, Levy indicates that similar open conversations about the past are needed.
If the Zucker mann family embodies the tension of German-German and German-Jewish relations, then the vision put forward by Levy is one of a normalized and peaceful coexistence, marked by tolerance and understanding. But this, Levy contends, can only be achieved if all foolishness—political agendas, personal grudges, and mistrust—is set aside and all players embark on this process with honesty, forbearance, and an open mind.
Just as the schlemiel Jackie reintegrates into his family, his religious community, and society as a whole by shedding his folly, so, too, can the different factions that make up a twenty-first century unified Germany also work to integrate into a society in which all constituents can flourish and have a voice. Not only individual character traits, but also narrative perspectives are important in schlemiel fiction.
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One way the reader of schlemiel fiction gets to know the protagonist and his worldview is by experiencing him telling the story in his own voice. The schlemiel communicates his perspective on events directly, gaining control if not of his destiny, then at least of the means by which it is narrated: The reader, of course, is well aware of the conflicting nature of the versions told by the author and the schlemiel.
Film is a medium that is especially well-suited to presenting simultaneous, conflicting textual and visual narration of a single event. In Alles auf Zucker! Levy gives a voice to the schlemiel Jackie at the beginning and end of the film through nondiegetic commentary. This cinematic technique allows the events narrated visually by the camera to appear quite different from the way Jackie sees them and, thus, illustrates how he interprets his reality.
As Jackie narrates while in a coma, no less: Though Jackie seems to be on the losing side of every conflict during the greater part of the film, it would be amiss to interpret him as a victim of historical and personal circumstances. In fact, Levy distinctly rejects the victim role for his character by treating it humorously in his film.
When Jackie is taken to the hospital for the first time for a staged heart attack, his neighbors comment: By letting Jackie put on the victim hat whenever it serves him, Levy demonstrates the degree to which this role has become associated with the Jewish persona. He also shows, however, that Jewish identity comprises more dimensions than such narrow casting evokes, which is one of the main reasons this comedy has enjoyed such strong support from the Jewish community in Germany.
Multi-dimensional in his own right, Jackie is portrayed as a cunning, yet also naive, weak, and dreamy man, characteristic for the schlemiel figure Wisse 53, Sure enough, he cons his pool partners and lies to everyone in his family, but he does so in order to clear his debts, not out of greed.
In fact, he proves his innate good-heartedness by displaying generosity toward others. To Jackie, these surroundings not only include the conformist society of socialism, but also his new capitalist reality. In contrast, Jackie stands out as someone whose actions are not dictated by considerations of economic or social status, but who genuinely cares about other people.
Thus, his weaknesses—gambling and cheating—are intimately tied to his strengths: This dialectic—weakness turning into strength upon close examination—is one of the most important features of the schlemiel Wisse In fact, as is the case with Jackie, once this weakness—his inclination to help others even if by questionable means—is no longer ridiculed, but recognized as a strength, it reflects badly not on the schlemiel, but rather on those who mock him, turning the erstwhile loser into a moral victor.
Thus, while the schlemiel exemplifies those negative qualities of weakness that must be exposed and ridiculed to be overcome, schlemiel fiction also sets up inversions by producing a balanced type of humor that cuts simultaneously into the character and into those who belittle him Wisse At first, they appear to be the perfect counter-image to the eastern German loser Jackie and his clan. With his mother, wife, and two children, he led the life of an orthodox Jew, as both Jackie and Rabbi Ginsberg acknowledge.
He gained status, as his doctoral title suggests, and considerable wealth. Speculation, of course, has much in common with its low-brow cousin, gambling, which Jackie enjoys. Speculation typically involves the lending of money or the purchase of assets, equity or debt but in a manner that has not been given thorough analysis or is deemed to have a low margin of safety or a significant risk of the loss of the principal investment.
The kind of activity in which Samuel Zuckermann engaged thus had little to do with respectable financial investing, but rather with imprudent risk-taking in hopes of receiving quick profits. Not only do the two brothers share the weakness of indulging in speculation or gambling, but their families are also similarly dysfunctional. Even Samuel and his wife Golda turn out to be less orthodox when it comes to financial matters. It does not take long for them to discover that the Zucker household does not adhere to Jewish customs. The latter, of course, is not easily fooled and eventually admits that he has knowingly ignored the breaking of shiva law as long as he could pretend not to be in the know.
He is aware that sitting shiva and having a conciliatory talk with his brother will require putting forth the pretense of following Jewish customs and concealing his assimilation to gentile culture, as well as his true persona. Thus, while Jackie concocts stories and misleads people in typical prankster-style he pretends to play pool while intoxicated, for instance , at his core he remains true to himself and openly admits to, as well as accepts, his faults and weaknesses, confirming his schlemiel persona: The film gradually reveals the fact that life in western Germany is not as grand as Samuel makes it out to be.
In effect, Jackie gains moral superiority over his brother by refusing to pretend to be better than he actually is and by simply accepting his status as an unlucky trickster. Presenting the dynamic of East-West relations in Germany in the framework of a schlemiel story whose plot develops as a family feud offers a new perspective on this cultural conflict. In this dynamic, western Germany is often seen as the strong, intact, and dominant force, while eastern Germans are mostly regarded as inept or naive.
The schlemiel Jackie gives voice to the latter perspective, while simultaneously turning this dynamic on its head. According to Wisse, this represents the essence of the schlemiel dialectic: In fashioning the schlemiel, the Jew admits how weak and foolish he appears to those who dominate him […]. Yet […] he does not submit to self-hatred, and stands proudly on his own record. After all, so goes the inevitable dialectic, he survives. And after all, is he as foolish as he seems? And above all, who are they to judge him?
At its best, the finished irony holds both the contempt of the strong for the weak and the contempt of the weak for the strong, with the latter winning the upper hand. By presenting the schlemiel as an eastern German Jew, Levy engages a potent technique of Jewish humor: Such a definition of winner status opens the door to anyone, regardless of ethnic belonging, or geographical or historical heritage, and is based solely on modes of behavior.
Levy proposes, is up to the individual, each of whom possesses a free will to alter his fate. Inversions also occur in the realm of moral standing and further highlight the schlemiel character of Jackie. Through his demeanor throughout the film, the western brother leaves no doubt that he perceives himself to be the superior of the two brothers.
He even uses courtroom lingua, giving the impression that he comes from a morally superior position to judge his brother: In fact, the double standard of his moral stance becomes more acute when he ends his tirade of insults with an apology—not to his brother, as one might expect, but to his mother: In this instance, the supposed loser once more proves himself morally superior by refusing to respond to insults and physical aggression with the same.
In this confrontation, Jackie additionally unmasks the tendency of the West to draw attention to and exaggerate the involvement of the East German secret service, the infamous Staatssicherheit or Stasi , in every facet of life in the GDR—a stereotype that has prevailed for years after the fall of the Wall. This play on words is amusing and its clever use of language a staple of Jewish humor. Levy conveys the moral message in this Jewish parable that inherited, historical roles need not be stagnant, but rather must adapt to an ever-changing reality.
It was introduced in to bolster public investment in eastern Germany. This is done, for example, by highlighting this traditional, stereotypical discourse in scenes that provoke sympathetic laughter, and by choosing not to recast the Jews in the victim role they typically inhabit in post German films.
These roles evolve as the plot unfolds and are presented from different perspectives throughout the film. Just as Levy refuses to label one group in German society the perennial victim, his use of Jewish humor also denies any one group the attribute of winner. Discussions of the prototypical Jewish prankster, the schlemiel, have shown that this kind of humor turns such norms upside down, criticizing both the fool as well as those deriding him.
The supposed loser thereby gains the upper hand, mocking his mockers. Levy joins the postwall plea of scholars and the media in Germany and abroad for normalization in the Berlin Republic.
He paints a vision of tolerance and acceptance between different social, religious, and ethnic groups. He draws on and mingles familiar stereotypes of eastern and western Germans, as well as Jews, asking his audience to look beyond these and to see the Other as a human being, sharing the same weaknesses, problems, and joys. His goal appears to be an easing of the tension-fraught relations between East and West, as well as Jew and Gentile, by means of a kind of humor that underscores commonalities.
Instead, this film serves as a plea for open and productive interactions, which can lead to a new freedom in identity formation, along with the acceptance of diverse expressions of group belonging. Levy signals that Jewish citizens living in Germany today want to leave behind their marginalized, passive position of victimhood and instead become active, equal members of German society. This resurgence of Jewish humor in postwall Germany indicates a strengthening, as well as a certain degree of emancipation, of Jewish culture there. This creates a sense of otherness that is imbued with a guilty conscience arising out of history.
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Jewish Life in Germany. English Humour for Beginners. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Jewish Humor — A Survey and a Program. Characteristics of Jewish Humor. Anat Zajdman and Avner Ziv. The Schlemiel as Metaphor: Studies in the Yiddish and American Jewish Novel. Justin Cyril Bertrand Gosling. Da lacht des Rabbis Herz: Let there be laughter!: Jewish Humor in America. Rosten, Leo Calvin, and Lawrence Bush. The New Joys of Yiddish. The World as Will and Idea. Richard Burdon Haldane and John Kemp. Classic Jewish Humor in America.
German Literature of the s and Beyond: The Schlemiel as Modern Hero. U of Chicago P, Zajdman, Anat, and Avner Ziv, eds. Dabei benutzt die Kunst zwei Kunstgriffe: Immediately following the opening of the border between East and West Germany the desire to abolish all symbols of the forced separation was overwhelming. The photographs provide insights into the daily life of GDR citizens and include a series of long-term portraits depicting children during the s in the GDR and accompanying their arrival into a new society after the upheaval Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 14 Aug.
Anne Hector 79 humans had started was taken over by natural forces, and Mother Nature reasserted her dominion over politics, replacing the man-made border with wetlands and wildlife. At the same time, substantial efforts were made, especially in Berlin, to preserve collective memories of East German history: Many books have also been written by and about those who lived in the GDR, and this terrain is not the sole prerogative of humor and satire—the dialogue is ongoing. However, in a parallel process that mimics Mother Nature, to some extent forty years of East German culture is being distorted and covered up as biting satire, demeaning humor, and tawdry memorializing take their toll, eating away at the memories of those who grew up there.
I intend to show that this erosion is the socioliterary equivalent of Mother Nature transforming the landscape, turning now fossilized memories into grotesque aberrations. Myths and legends can serve as means to convey a critical distance from events and experiences and prolong their reification as art. The reader identifies with such scenes as they emerge from the felt and lived experience of East German and Soviet citizens, despite their grotesque distortion of this experience. Although former citizens of the GDR and the USSR can identify with these scenes more easily than others who did not experience such systems firsthand, all readers are provided easy access to 3 The former detainee, Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel, planned his return to the prison cell as part of a live art project with the artist Franziska Vu.
Most scenes also provide a critical counterpoint from which postwall society can be evaluated. Jakob Hein and Wladimir Kaminer: Brief Backgrounds Hein b. While other writers also read at public gatherings, for Hein and Kaminer reading and performing are linked: He became known widely in Germany after his semi- autobiographical vignette collection recording his memories of East Germany, Mein erstes T-Shirt, was published in Other group members have also made a name for themselves outside the group.
Anne Hector 81 music and shows geared toward immigrants and xenophilic Germans from until He, too, though not born in Berlin, has lived there since His views of the city—including its food, the Berlin dialect, as well as German culture in general—have been shaped by his position as an immigrant. Here, as in his other books, Kaminer displays his now famous ability to create puns and wordplays, mixing descriptions of awkward and humorous incidents with historical facts about Berlin as a reinvigorated center of fashion and culture.
They thus provide an ambiguous camouflage for the scar left by the Wall: The Grotesque and the Rhetorics of Play Methods for creating humor include the carnivalesque as put forward by Mikhail Bakhtin and the grotesque as outlined by Geoffrey Harpham.
Bakhtin defines the carnival as a social institution and the carnivalesque as a method in literature of depicting a time when the ordinary rules of society and culture are in abeyance and there is a flattening or reversal of the social hierarchy, creating the potential for the masses to criticize the authorities Bakhtin Grotesque configurations of the physical body 5 The radio show was shut down by the RBB on December 31, , because of a lack of funding; however, it continues to be broadcast on the Internet under the name Radio multicult2.
Harpham sees the grotesque as a gross exaggeration that holds onto some aspects of reality, but allows familiar and unfamiliar objects to intermingle Harpham 5. Although the unfamiliar paints a gloss over the familiar, the two together transcend the sum of their parts and create a new, independent entity. The carnivalesque and grotesque modes provide a basic strategy of humor that appears simple on the surface: Because this defamiliarization makes a person, object, or institution appear new or different, it can thus cause us to laugh: In fact, it is talismanic of their brand of humor.
Often this playfulness also serves to convey grotesquerie, rebellion against authority, or satirical criticism. As the term is used here, the rhetorics of play express the way play is placed in context within broader value systems, which are assumed by the theorists of play rather than studied directly by them. The seven rhetorics he delineates are the rhetoric of play as progress, as fate, as power, as identity, as the imaginary, and as frivolous, as well as the rhetoric of the self.
All furthermore contribute to producing defamiliarization. The first of these three rhetorics highlights identity as a rhetoric of play: This identity- forming rhetoric, displayed during carnivals, group rituals, and festivals, reaffirms existing affiliations and differentiates one group from all others. In the texts by Hein and Kaminer discussed here, identity is constantly under assault. Who or what is German? Who or what is Self, who is the Other? Their game-like constructions are playful and amusing, often containing fantastical and untrue segments, but they also set up situations that provoke serious reflection regarding the characteristics that make up German identity.
Play can have many different applications, but art and literature showcase it as a major instigator of creativity. Frivolity is the third rhetoric utilized in this chapter: The rhetoric of play as frivolous […] is usually applied to the activities of the idle or the foolish. But frivolity, as used here, is not just the puritanic negative, it is also a term to be applied more to historical trickster figures and fools, who were once the central and carnivalesque persons who enacted playful protest against the orders of the ordained world.
Hein purports to take the reader on a tour through the mythology associated with East Germany. In his texts the formerly oppressed get a chance to speak up and find vindication by criticizing the authorities without being punished for it, a benefit that Bakhtin associates with the carnivalesque Bakhtin It is a fact that drivers had to use a GDR highway to get to their destination in the West; however, Hein invents imaginary clauses to his law, one of which stipulates that people found wandering on the berm should automatically be considered GDR citizens and treated as such.
Humor here comes in the guise of absurdity; it is used to stop the action for a moment to give the reader a chance to think. Stopping the forward action and presenting a distorted, funhouse mirror of the world are means Hein uses to produce defamiliarization so that his readers come to see objects in unfamiliar formats. Instead, Hein focuses entirely on the difficulties the boy encounters in adjusting to his new life in the East. He is adopted immediately, but his East German parents struggle to fulfill his consumer demands.
Note in the following passage how an exaggeration that mixes the familiar with the unfamiliar is built on a premise based in reality: The parents cannot deal with a child socialized in the West. Hein describes this incident and its consequences with an objective tone, although, had they been experienced in real life, they would have been traumatic. Not surprisingly, these differences have dominated public and private discussions since unification.
After this failed experiment, Holger was reunited with his parents in the FRG.
Mach mich nicht an!
Did Holger remain single because of his childhood trauma? We will never know. Ambiguity is the result of this mixing of modes. Although we are presented with real memories, their scars are disappearing from view. Against the backdrop of what appears to be an amusement park, the two adoptive parents stand with obligatory smiles on their faces, while the child in the middle maintains a bemused expression. The shot captures a moment of forced togetherness that appears ironic in the context of what should have been experienced by participants as a happy outing.
This time, a group of acting students is required to work in factories to learn about the everyday life of the working class He suggests that budding actors, and not writers, accompany the workers and study them to be able to portray them properly on stage in future theatrical productions. The story takes an unexpected turn, however, as the students assimilate perfectly; one student even gives up acting to continue working at the factory. In the process writers were sent to factories to speak with workers. Furthermore, acknowledging the ideas of the future actors would have undermined the privileged status of the factory workers.
These particular supervisors, in fact, were so rigid that they did not see the actors as possessing the legitimacy to make suggestions at all and thus abolished the experiment altogether. In this vignette Hein demonstrates how, although purportedly a classless society, social distinctions persisted in the GDR.
The author slyly adds another jab at GDR reality by concluding his tale with a vengeful, ironic plot twist: Comment spinner - unless somebody shall dare to claim that these are cognates. Comment Of course they are, dear native speaker. English "spinner" is derived from spin as in "spin goat's hair into wool". German "Spinner" is derived from "spinnen", which has the same meaning, and is a cognate, one hundred percent. The meaning of "Spinner" as in Verrueckter goes back to "jemand spinnt Gedanken", d. Comment Something which turned up in another query: Comment Hans,you have shot me down,but how about this one: What can you do with that?
Comment What about the word bob? Comment native speaker a few posts above: Comment There seems to be a size limit on comments now, which is why I couldn't post before. Unfortunately my comments are too long to post now due to this size limit. I'll try to add what I can in bits and pieces. Comment Interesting comments, Hans, and thanks for bringing them up. You're right, a certain percentage of the words offered here are indeed cognates, and so are not really false enemies.
One reason I didn't want to get involved in that discussion before this point is that for some words it's debatable which category they fall into, and for others my German is simply not good enough and I don't have a German etymological dictionary handy. Plus, we could end up with endless side discussions or quibbles about this or that word, which would divert energy from the central point which is to concentrate on finding more new ones.
Which is not to discourage anyone from pointing out that certain words don't belong according to the definition, as some have appropriately done, I'm just less competent to do so. Comment Nevertheless, since as you point out there is an increasing number of questionable entries I would just like to make a few points about what belongs and what doesn't. You're right to go back to the original definition, and your paraphrase of it is a good one. The original definition is not arbitrary--as I alluded originally there is a serious purpose also to be served, though I admit that for me that is secondary to the fun I am having here reading all the responses and getting involved.
Comment Be that as it may, some additional comments to clarify the definition, beyond what has already been said, may be in order.
Falsche Feinde
To respond to those asking questions about capitalization and umlauts: You can also respell the umlaut using the -e- convention is there a German word for this? German "Zzxuex" but note: Comment So if I had to restate the rules very precisely, it would go like this: Characters are usually just letters: A-Z, but if a word requires a hyphen, then that occupies a character position all by itself it is not an "accented character" and so there must be a hyphen in both G and E.
The words must not be cognates--their origin must be different. They "accidentally" have the same spelling. These are true false enemies. A surprising to me example is "Gift" which I always thought to be accidental cognates, but it turns out they have a common origin so they must be considered "false friends" and not false enemies, and so do not belong here. This isn't really a rule, but a clarification about respelling of German words with certain letters: Comment I don't want to get into the rules for false friends here, they could well be different. If the English word were spelled this way, it would still not be a false enemy because it would fail the common origin test.
Whether this word is acceptable as a false friend is another question in my opinion, yes it is. As several have pointed out, there is a separate forum for the "False friends"--and False Friends are much more important to the language learner, where "false enemies" are merely a curiosity to the learner. Comment About place names: They are words, people understand them, and use them to communicate.
They simply must adhere to the rules of the definition, like any other word. What about words with two separate meanings, where one of them is a cognate but the other isn't? These words are acceptable. I don't know if "Arm" is a good example because I'm not sure of the German etymology, but if "arm" poor is not etymologically related to "Arm" body part then it is a valid False Enemy because we can choose G.
Comment So, I hope this has helped to refocus on what exactly is a "False Enemy". Yes, maybe "real enemy" would've been a better name, but then we would've lost the amusing alliteration as well as stealing some of the limelight and recognition value from "false friends"! Here's a short version of the definition to test your word: Identical spelling letter for letter, ignoring umlauts, accents and capital letters on both sides; no common derivation.
Thanks for all the great comments, and hope this helps! Comment Whew, what an ordeal! I'll keep my comments short next time, but I don't know if I'll be able to post the entire sorted list anymore, at least not all in one message. Claudia thanks for all the great posts, but watch the definition: An understandable confusion, in the absence of the precise definition; hopefully it'll be easier now for everyone to distinguish between what is and isn't a Falsche Feinde. Comment An Amelie Beitrag vom Juli Deutsch -bold ist verwandt mit dem englischen bold.
Das englische Wort hat diese Bedeutung bewahrt. Das deutsche -bold ist "verkommen" zu einem Suffix in Rauf-, Trunk-, oder Witzbold. The total number so far is !! H - Q hag, half, hall, Hamburger, handy, hang, happen, hart, haste, hasten, hat, heck, heft, held, hell, heller, helm, her, herb, herd, herd, hob, hold, hole, horst, hose, hub, hummer, hut, Inn, ire, island, jag, jammer, just, kerb, kind, kipper, kitten, lab, labor, lack, lad, lade, laden, lag, lager, lake, lass, last, latte, leer, leg, lest, lied, liege, limo, link, links, list, lob, lobe, loch, locker, log, lore, lose, lot, lump, lunge, lurch, mach, Made, mag, main, male, man, mantel, mark, mark, mass, maul, met, minder, mine, mist, mitten, mode, mole, moll, moos, moose, moped, mops, most, mull, Murks, muss, muster, mutter, natter, nett, nix, not, Note, null, nun, nut, old-timer, pack, page, pate, pest, pike, plane, Platte, plump, Po, police, pope, posse, post, pro, Probe, promotion, provision, puff, pulli, pummel, pump, pup, pups, quake.
R - Z including a few Q's that should have been in the previous post Qualm, quark, quell, queue, quote, racker, rad, rain, rand, rang, range, raps, rat, regal, reif, rein, rest, riff, rind, ring, rock, roman, rose, rot, rote, routine, ruck, sack, sag, sage, salve, same, schmuck, see, sense, siege, singe, smoking, smoking, sold, sole, span, spanner, spare, spat, speck, spiel, spinner, spleen, spree, spring, spur, spurt, stab, stand, star, stark, stern, stile, stock, store, strafe, strand, stuck, such, sud, summer, sure, Tag, talk, tang, tank, taste, tat, tee, teil, Teller, these, tick, tier, toll, Ton, tor, tot, tote, traps, tripper, trunk, tun, turn, turner, wade, wage, walker, wall, wand, war, ward, wart, was, web, welch, welt, wen, werf, wetten, wetter, wider, will, wink, Worms, wort.
Comment OK, really there are only entries in the list, I did not remove the duplicates!! Here I have some: And what english word is "kater"??? Comment Bilge ist auch deutsch, steht sogar im Leo. Ich hoffe, habe es wieder gutgemacht. Comment common, tear, grass, mind, loud, plaster, horny, figure German words?
I don't think so OK, I'll admit to 'grass' as the name of a writer. Comment "van" a German word? If you thought of Ludwig van Beethoven: Thus, "van" is Dutch, not German. Comment proper names grass don't count. Neither do cognates wind,trip,ball,sex,pole,bank,etc. Where do you get common,tear,mind,loud,plaster,horny,figure? Pfahl, Stab, Stange und der nord Pol! Comment "Words that have the same origin Comment I have wasted another half hour to come up with another 4 "Falsche Feinde": Eine Frage, die nichts mit dem gestellten Thema zu tun hat: Dein letzter Beitrag, um 6: Wann schlaft ihr eigentlich?
Comment die usa haben ja noch ein paar andere zeitzonen. Comment Heinz, auf deine Frage "Wann schlaft ihr eignetlich? Wenn ich also in New York wohnte, waere meine Antwort auf deine Frage "we don't". Wenn man das Suchen nach "Falschen Feinden" Arbeit nennen will. Aber keine Angst, um 1: Comment Hans, I should have remembered, since I used to live in the greater N. Comment Peter I didn't know that "old-timer" is a loan word, as you say.
As far as I know it's a false friend like "dressman", "showmaster", "Chips", "Bowle", "Slip", Smoking" etc. Unterrichtsstunde im neuen Schuljahr. Das eine ist krass und das andere ist cool Comment great list - it was fun to read it! BMW I was asking an american customer for a "beamer" to give a presentation, but they said: You get them cheaper in Germany LEO lists beamer as an english word, but at least in the US it's not used. Try to buy a beamer at ebay.
No projectors among offers. Comment allen - Allen key, screw, wrench Not sure if this counts, as Allen looks like a name to me. Comment I can't stand looking at this mega-thread without having added anything. When I reached 'p', I was surprised to find 'prima' as an English expression. It has the same meaning as it has in German so doesn't really fit here, but I just wondered how you would spell it: Comment Is the term "double-beamer" still around?
I remember there was this fashion around 10 years ago. Comment durst archaic past tense of dare. Comment Und noch eins: I'm not aware of Prima in English. I checked two desk dictionaries which have it only as part of the expression "prima ballerina" which is used. Md my Webster's New Int'l unabridged 2nd also has it as a printing and proofreading term. Thanks for Pylon, and welcome to the party! AW-I didn't understand your post, are you proposing "double-beamer" as a False Enemy?
In this case it would have to be used in German, spelled exactly like that, and have no common origin with the English. This seems pretty unlikely. A reminder for anyone not familiar with earlier posts, here's a quick definition of "False Enemies": A word spelled identically in German and English letter for letter, ignoring umlauts, accents and capital letters on both sides and having no common origin; examples: Please refer to the long version of the definition at Aug 18 Comment here's an easy one or do we have that already?
Comment Ich haette noch "floss" im Angebot. Comment firm gas lose roll war. Comment I am in awe at how long we have kept this thread going. For a while, I thought we were getting to the bottom of the barrell, and that only the very obscure "Falsche Feinde" are left see my post "durst" from Sep. But "floss" and "firm" in the previous 2 posts demonstrate that there are still a lot of lucky finds to be made.
By the way, "war" and "lose" were included in previous posts. Comment Let's push it. Plural von See Stolen E: Comment Wie waers mit: Ich dachte du bleibst, Wochen Monate Jahre dran? Uebrigens eine sehr lustige Liste. Comment I am really impressed by this thread. Not only because of the great number of entries but because I find that I have less problems learning the english vocabulary by reading the "false friends" and the comments on them. This list would be a good aid for beginners and also experts. I would appreciate to get it. Not only because of the great number of entries but because I find that I have less problems learning the english vocabulary by reading the "false enemies" and the comments on them.
Comment to rappel, amerik. Comment einer geht noch: Dann muesste es doch auch den Regeln ensprechen, oder? Comment Silke--I'm always here, I just don't like to post too often unless I have something specific to share--this isn't "my" thread, it's ours, everybody's, it belongs to everyone who has contributed, and who will contribute.
Horst--everyone you see here is collecting the list, and LEO is kind enough to host the collection and thus give life to this mini-community, isn't it great? So far, we don't have a complete description of the English and German meanings, nor even a careful editing of the list to see which ones really are False Enemies. But for my part, I didn't want to get too involved in too many discussions about which words belong, because it might interfere with further collection of new words, unless a poster clearly misunderstood the definition.
At work there's sometimes a saying of "he who suggests it, does it" so if you want to start compiling a complete list with meanings, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it! It's great if you're learning from it, but don't forget the "False Friends" which classically is much more important for language learners, there are whole books on the subject.
Thanks to all the new posts, I DO read and enjoy them all. Comment Germ - yeast germ - Keim. Comment What about christendom?
Follow the Author
Perhaps they're already old; I didn't read all these comments, because the list already quite long ;- Greetings from a "false-friends-suffering" German exchange student in Dallas, Texas! Comment Almost a whole week has gone by, and no new "Falsche Feinde" have been posted. Are we reaching the point where we have captured all of them? I don't think so - but the specimens that are left in the wild are certainly becoming more elusive. I know there are more Falsche Feinde out there - let's catch them all!!
The following is the beginning of a 19th century poem which contains TWO Falsche Feinde both of which are new to this thread. Can you spot them? Comment I am not sure, but is "Springer" such a false friend? A new false enemy? Comment Sorry, the first line must be "false enemy". Comment Anne, da haste mitten ins Schwarze getroffen!! Comment wie ist es mit wog D. Can't believe that all those animals are still missing Mute Dativ von Mut E: Comment Congratulations, we have reached entries by now.
Maybe it is time to get into the discussion about questionable entries that do not meet the "Falsche Feinde" definition. For the time being I have updated the "complete and uncensored list" and subdivided it into two sections. Comment Undisputed entries A-G: Comment Undisputed entries H-O: Comment Undisputed entries P-Z: Comment Questionable entries 64 in number: Comment This is of course no final verdict. In fact, everybody is invited to argue and prove that a certain word belongs in one or the other category i. Peter's definition of 18 Aug. All the same the FE-community and all newcomers are still called upon to hunt the remaining Enemies.
As Hans said earlier, "Let's catch them all! Comment Syl-de, a big thank you from me and the rest of the FE-community for compiling the latest list of False Enemies. I was thinking last week that it's about time that we had a complete list again. I was even considering doing it myself, wasting an hour or two on False Enemies, instead of painting the porch, and cleaning up the basement. But you have already done the job!! I especially like the way you divided the list into undisputed and questionable entries.
Comment Many thanks at syl. I am sorry to say it's only entries as "smoking" and "gut" are included twice ;- Btw, I'd like to dispute the status of "smoking". The German and the Englisch word clearly have the same English origin and are therefore no False Enemies. Comment I'm so sorry, but I have to reduce the total amount once more: In order to make good, I have a new one: Comment It was a very rainy sunday afternoon, when I noticed how many of those Falsche Feinde are still around.
It was much fun to catch some more of them Austrian for parish boundary; E: Comment and the last bunch: Einheit and some additional relatives of already known Enemies: Comment syl-de, you are incredible. How did you find all these? It must have been a very long and very rainy Sunday Peter, it seems that you have created a new medical condition - the False Enemy Syndrome.
It's highly contagious, and addictive, too. Once you are hooked, you spend endless hours catching False Enemies, when you should be painting the porch, eating, or sleeping. Maybe we need to start a therapy group Comment Count me in! Comment just found one in one of the other threads: Oregano, scientific name "Origanum vulgare" Sorry that I didn't include this one into my last and similar posting, but the idea came to me during the night.
Well, I think it's time to paint the porch Comment I forgot to ask before: PA mentioned that "smoking" in English and in German looks back at the same origin, which is most likely. But does anybody know the reason for developing a totally different meaning in the German language? Unfortunately I do have no source to look it up, yet would be interested to know how the different meanings developed. Or can somebody tell me where I might be able to look it up? Comment Heinz H, I have finished the first coat of paint on my porch. Thanks for reminding me.
Since I have to wait for the paint to dry, I have some time to look up "smoking" Etymologie-Duden: Smoking ist die Kurzform von smoking-suit oder smoking-jacket. Gemeint ist ein Jackett, das man in England nach dem Mittagsmahl zum "Rauchen" anzog, um den Frack zu schonen. Comment Vielen Dank, Hans! Even so it originated in English, smoking is - as far as I know - in respect of a garment not used or known anymore in this language.
Quite interesting that the Germans picked it up and saved this meaning from extinction. Obviously our flair for Anglicisms has a long history. I hope your paint has dried up; it looks pretty much like rain is just around the corner. As far as I know, "smoking jacket" is still used in the English language.
Interestingly, the German "Smoking" or "Smokingjackett" denotes a prim dinner jacket, while the English "smoking jacket" is much more casual, sort of a "Hausjacke". Comment Neither do I own a porch nor am I obliged to paint one. Thus, I could luckily hunt down another gang of Enemies. Comment Syl-de, don't you know that this "I could stop any time" attitude is one of the typical symptoms of FES addiction? You are deluding yourself. Please, please, seek help!!
Find the nearest chapter of FES Anonymous. Don't get sucked into the maelstrom any deeper. Ist "well" ein deutsches Wort? Comment Got another one! Ich will ES nicht den Punkt streitig machen, es kommt mir nur komisch vor Comment Merriam-Webster kennt zwar nicht das Grillrestaurant aber: French grille, alteration of Old French greille, from Latin craticula, diminutive of cratis wickerwork Date: Thanks for the hint! I always thought f-flat in German is simply "e". Therefore I checked a website on musical notes, low and behold what did I find?
Fez, die Kopfbeeckung his D: Ist doch ein Unterschied, oder? It is the same key on a piano, but when a very careful violinist plays the two notes, then e is a little bit higher than f-flat. I am sorry to say, but "as" was already included in Peter's very first posting albeit he meant the German 'as' as the note or the ace. Comment Sorry guys, there's no scoring for "fes". Believing syl-de, it's a turkish sort of hat like a small upside-down bucket, dark red, with a piece of black string fixed on top in English.
I'm afraid it's the same in German: You are right, but may I add that the imperative sing. According to Peter's Definition of 18 Aug, 9, it does not matter if words have two separate meanings, where one of them is only a cognate. Comment This would be absolutely boring! There are tons of words that have the same pronounciation and the same meaning in English and in German and then also some other meanings. There is nothing special about that, just look LEO up and down. I always looked for words that have definitely different meanings - and most of those listed above do.
But they are those really hard to find Is that worth a new thread? May I once more refer you to Peter's definition of 18 Aug esp. It is the unrelated origin not the differing meaning that make those words False Enemies. Although the word in German and English denotes the same part of the body and has the same etymological root it nevertheless is a False Enemy: What's so artificial about a hat and a note? Google proves that both words are really being used. At least, used more often than the imperative of 'fliesen' ;-. I wasn't taking a swipe at your latest words.
As a child I wanted a fes, and I've played weird things like Fes or Eis before. Halter, Griff wedding D: Stadtteil von Berlin, E: Comment This weekend being astonishingly warm and sunny has kept me from my favourite leisure activity most of the time. Italian or Spanish secular priest; E: Austrian for fatso ; E: Ware and again some relatives of already known Enemies: May I add this one: Comment "wider" as opposed to "wieder" ,given by stefan i think, is arguably not a word but a morpheme since "wider" needs an additional element to form a complete word: Going by the rules, anyway Oder "wider besseren Willens"?
Oder "Wider den tierischen Ernst"? Wider ist noch quicklebendig!! Comment hm wolf hast wohl recht gell? Comment Reinhard, I am afraid you are right. I'll try to find ersatz Comment Just came across unbar D: Comment Arrgrgrg -- this thread is driving me nuts! No matter how hard I try, I cannot think of any false enemies. But this morning, with the help of the last entry, I found one! Comment Donjo, that's it! I found various attempts to assure one's Seelenheil like this: Andreas Capellen auf dem Berg I was really surprised at your complete abstinence so far. However, be careful, this sport is highly addictive Comment can't believe it!
Comment Sorry that I have to object to dg's "still". This English "still" and the German "still" are going back to the same Germanic roots. Nevertheless "still" is a true false enemy: Mardi Gras rats D: Don't know if it has the same origin. In German there is a second word 'Abort' derived from the lower German 'af-ort' remote place meaning toilet. Comment PA, you seem to have waited for it ;- Here we go: Bars, Schranken baste D: Teil des Zaumzeugs, or: Trottellumme, der Vogel rase D: Gartenkorb Yes, I do have a life! Have a nice week all!
Comment I knew it! How are you doing that? And when do you have your 'other' life? Comment Kann es sein, dass ich trotz der bereits vorhandenen phaenomenalen Liste auch eins gefunden habe? Comment und noch eins: Rote Armee Fraktion E: Comment Well done, Silke!
Comment syl-de, honestly, how in the world are you doing that? What's your secret recipe for False Enemy catching? I am happy if I find one or two, but you produce them by the dozens!! Comment I am setting snares for them - and they are trapped before you can say FES Btw, I have to correct the very first entry of my weekend posting. Comment ds, kommst du aus der schweiz? Get the bubbly from the fridge Comment Disputed entries Comment speaking of AR: Ich komme aus Hamburg, lebe jetzt in Bayern.
Vermutlich bedeutet das Wort in der Schweiz etwas anderes? Hauptstadt von Italien E: Comment Whith this URL, a decent English dictionary word list an a bit of scripting it would be possible to automate the search http: This will produce a rather comprehensive list of F. But it would also blow the fun. Comment Finally I had the time to go through all the given definitions of false enemies.
And I dare to say that right now I have understood. Considering that, I have to admit that most of the "tons of words" I mentioned above don't really fit and can be thrown away immediately. Read and enjoy the concept's not a bad one - we might pick it up here when some day this thread has run out. Comment for Peter or Thread-Polizei: Comment Do names count? Na, hoffen wir darauf, das bei Syl am Wochenende schlechtes Wetter ist ;-.
Relief - probably cognate both from French relever We need a referee. There are false friends and loanwords sneaking in here. Comment Funny excursion, my ideas: Auto limit sorry about zig, I've posted it twice, but it isn't in syl's list. Comment Kern fern horn. Comment Alex, why are horn, imitation, gold, and limit "false enemies"?
Am I missing something? Next time I will read the 1st posting of the thread a little more accurate. I will try to find words fitting the requirements. Comment This is a re-post of "kerb", initially posted by Amelie on Jul It occurred to me that Kerb is also a dialect word for "Kirchweih, Kirmes", for those of us like myself who grew up speaking Rheinhessisch.
I am not sure whether Duden lists it. Comment auf die Gefahr hin, dass es auch in die Liste der disputed entries kommt: Mehrzahl Herbst gibts das ueberhaupt? Abkuerzung fuer desireable residence, attraktiver Wohnsitz des Genetivartikel Das ist ganz schoen schwierig inzwischen. Immer wenn ich ueber einen Falschen Feind stolpere, schaue ich in der Liste nach und muss feststellen, da war schon jemand schneller. Aber ich gebe nicht auf! Comment Silke's "falls" can also mean "Faellen" as in Waterfalls. Comment I think I found another one. Comment dg - you state "no proper names or geographic place names" as one of the rules of the False Enemy game.
I think you are going too far here - place names ARE allowed - according to Peter Czukor who started this thread, and made the rules see his post from Sun Aug 18 Worms is a true False Enemy. I was born in Worms, and that is always a source of amusement to my American friends. What about proper names of people or "given names"? You give the example of Till, as in Eulenspiegel. Dick would be another nice one. Peter's rules don't really say anything about given names.
My personal feeling is that we would be opening the flood gates too wide if we allowed given names, with all their nickname varieties Bob , short forms, etc. Oh Peter, great old man on the mountain, can we have a verdict about given names? I'd suggest that acronyms that are spoken as words e.
ROM ['rom] instead of [ar'ou'em] do count; often those are also no longer spelled in capitals and treated like normal words laser, to laser etc. To allow other acronyms IMO would "open the flood gates too wide", as almost any combination of letters is used as an akronym in one or more specific fields. I DID check the rules for "till", but I could not find a satisfying answer. That's why I asked for clarification and posted only one name I agree with Hans Wolff: I hope Peter will enlighten us soon. BTW, if those names are ruled out, those already on the list should be removed as well, right?
I came across "else". Maybe I'm wrong and "else" is something else than a female name in German I admit, I haven't checked the Duden or else for that matter and this is the only first name I came across on the list. Comment I make the following points on today's comments: This should be excluded. Comment 3 Abbreviations - I hear no objections to excluding them, so I hereby declare them excluded. Comment Question for Muttersprachler: Are words like 'drum', 'rum', considered Abkuerzungen or true words?
Zur Frage, ob der Imperativ Singular in Deutschen mit oder ohne -e Endung gebildet wird und ob deswegen "sag" ein legitimer Falscher Feind ist oder nicht: Auf jeden Fall ist "sag" erlaubt, neben "sage". Nach kurzer Google-Suche fand ich folgende Seite: Ist "er gebiert" korrekt? I'm not familiar with alot of language resources Where could one check if two words are cognates before adding them to this posting? Comment 'bot' Salut Gabrielle, Not sure if you meant on-line resources or not. In any case, I'm not aware of any single resource that attempts to directly match inflected forms of German and English to determine if they're cognates or not.
But if you have a knowledge of how German words and inflected, then armed with that knowledge and a good monolingual English dictionary with etymological information there are many should do the trick. Take your candidate word, 'bat' for example. My desk-size Webster's Collegiate tells me that Engl. We can pretty safely assume that the inflected German past tense form 'bat' is not related to that, but could check a German dictionary under 'bitten' just to make sure.
One way to try to find new ones is to look at a conjugated verb table of German verbs, and find verb forms that look like they might be English words, and then check them in a dictionary. I just found a new False Enemy 'bot' that nobody seems to have mentioned; it's a form of 'bieten' don't ask me I don't know which one and of course is used these days in internet lingo. We could probably find a whole lot more this way.
T'es pas francophone par hasard? Comment Hi everybody, just wanted to jump in to respond to some of the questions that have started piling up. Who ever thought this would go on this long and that we'd need to think about the rules so carefully? But since behind all the fun there is a useful purpose, if I don't know the "rule" myself because I never thought of the situation before, I can go back to the "noise word" situation myself to think if there's any help to be found there. In general, there wouldn't really be any reason to exclude anything that is understood by a speaker of the language encountering the word.
Thus from that standpoint, you could include practically all of the categories mentioned. On the other hand, I do tend to agree with Hans who said, that it seems to be opening the floodgates too wide. Probably we should relegate geographical names to the same category, for now. Shall we agree to do this? But as ultimately those too could be useful, shall we agree that it's just a moratorium, and if the current flood turns to a trickle someday, we will "reserve the right to reopen the floodgate" at a later time if we need to?
Same thing with acronyms, although to make the game interesting, should we keep acronyms, as long as the FE is ALSO an acronym, and must be totally unrelated? This should be fun, too, so I'd almost like to just take a vote and see what people want, but I also realize the value of having a referee, so there's not endless dickering about it. Those would be my suggestions, but if there's a strong consensus for a different viewpoint, I can be convinced, so make your case!
Finally, dg to your point about being a referee, I'd love to be a perfect bilingual with encyclopedic knowledge of both English and German etymology, but alas I'm very far from it; if I were, maybe I'd even rate being called the great old man on the mountain. But until then, I'm afraid we'll either just have to fight it out individually, unless someone comes along who is willing to take up that crown. Comment Gabrielle, I have checked with my etymological dictionaries, and you have passed the congnate test.