Standard

The nation that invented the DIN, the Deutsche Industrienorm, has always been intoxicated by standards. So it proved irresistible when someone had the idea of attaching a "hip" English word to something so utterly German as standards. But by what evil twist did Standard then develop a non-standard spelling? Cantor offers a hilarious survey in his blog of the rapidly spread of the variant Standart in the German language.

• (2008-)


• (2008-)

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Sonnyboy, der

This is one of the great pseudo-Anglicisms, as it is often unquestioningly employed by bilingual people. It refers to a male who radiates smiling charm. Die Sonnyboys are mostly aged between 20 and 50. The term has for example been applied in 2008 to Jürgen Klinsmann, the coach of the Bayern München football team, in praise of his amiable grin and ability to get people on his side. Der Sonnyboy is not always a positive character: he may even be a con artist. But you can't help liking the guy. We don't really have an equivalent expression in English.
Der Sonnyboy is capitalized, given masculine gender, inflected with -s- in the genitive and is sometimes spelled der Sunnyboy though the Duden prefers the spelling with -o-. Its origin is a complete mystery. ... Read More

Training, das

This requires a special long-vowel pronunciation in German, and must be pronounced either "treening" or "träning". If you are a native English-speaker, check that you have this right by saying Träääääääääning: you must not pronounce it with the English-style dipthong, or you will seem a very ignorant person. English speakers should never imagine they are any better than the Germans at pronouncing Anglicisms: in fact they are almost always far worse at it than the most ill-educated German.
So what does das Training embrace? Essentially: the word belongs in a vague zone of meaning outside Bildung, Ausbildung or Weiterbildung. The word offers a huge array of false-friend traps, and is best circumvented when doing translations.
The person who administers the training is mostly der Betreuer, never der Ausbilder, and here's where it gets complicated: most forms of das Training are not administered by der Trainer or die Trainerin, because these titles are reserved for sports coaches! Nor is the person who receives das Training to be called der Trainee, because that term is often reserved for a young university graduate being groomed in a prestigious management formation programe at a company (though I suspect some companies do use the term as high-falutin term for der Praktikant).
Often das Training is a weasel word for projects to overcome human stupidity. A talking head was pontificating on Deutschlandfunk the other night about geistiges Träääääning for people approaching old age, meaning prising the pensioners away from their tellies and making them use their intellects. A couple of days ago, two men were sentenced to soziales Training, which is a euphemism for a form of therapy to teach you stop hitting people, cease binge drinking, eat right and regularly get out of bed before 9 am.
Das Training is too narrow to include military training (Soldatenausbildung). It would also not normally be a suitable word for on-the-job training (das Anlernen, concentrating on getting the job done and ignoring all theory), although the Duden Fremdwörterbuch proposes das Training on the Job. I don't believe the latter term is in general use: in fact, its inclusion is a good example of the hit-and-miss quality of the Duden.
Das Training is capitalized, given neuter gender and inflected with -s- in the genitive. ... Read More

Sale, der

This popular German shop-window sticker, usually seen on boutiques, does not mean a Schlussverkauf, confined to a certain period, is under way, but that the shop permanently marks down the price of slow-moving goods. The 8th edition of the Duden Fremdwörterbuch pedantically gives the English meaning of der Sale, but my colleague MM assures me that out on the mean streets, shoppers interpret those "Sale" or "Sales" placards as simply meaning, "Our clothes are bargains." The placards are long-term window fixtures. When a shop really holds a sale in the English sense, the sign is changed to Schlussverkauf or Räumungsverkauf. Der Sale is capitalized, given masculine gender, sometimes accretes a terminal S in the nominative without really becoming plural, and inflects to des Sales in the genitive. The initial -s- is soft. ... Read More

Sour-Cream, der

One of our favourite (mere) Anglicisms because its commonest pronunciation, der Sour-Cream, is uttered in much of the country with the word "sour" stressed and rhyming with "tour", more or less like "soo-a-craym". (Get it?). Careful speakers may attempt to pronounce it the English way (sau-a-kriem) and mock the common pronunciation as plebian and ignorant. This term is semantically similar to the phrase sour cream in English, and is usually found in recipes or on plastic pots of the stuff in supermarket refrigerators. Der Sour-Cream is capitalized, hypenated, given masculine gender and pronounced with an uvular -r- after the -c-. ... Read More

Set, das

The gender of this Anglicism for a placemat on a dining table has not been finally established, as das Set (genitive: des Set) or der Set (genitive: des Sets) are possible, according to Canoo. The word can be made more specific by speaking of a Tischset . The origin is unclear, though there may be a connection to the English verb, to set the table, or the noun, a setting, meaning the (countable) ensembles of cutlery and serviette arranged at each place by a waiter before a meal begins. ... Read More

Shootingstar, der

Not something or someone who is crashing and burning, but a rising star in entertainment or politics. Although English does have an expression, shooting star, for a meteorite that expires during Earth entry, the German term is clearly a pseudo-Anglicism, since it is not intelligible in the German sense to a monolingual English speaker. Curiously, there is an annual award for "der European Shooting Star" (not hyphenated) from an organization with the semi-English name "die European Film Promotion". This prize for up and coming actors and actresses is awarded in Berlin in blithe disregard for the English language. Capitalized, either hyphenated (der Shooting-Star) or merged, and pronounced with the stress on -shoo- rather than on -star-. ... Read More

Shooting, das

Das Shooting is a pseudo-Anglicism for a photo session, for example when photographers pose models and products for a poster or advertising picture. In its fuller form, das Foto-Shooting, the expression may just be intelligible to a monolingual English-speaker. ... Read More

Sponsoring, das

This Anglicism appears to have made a slow entry to Germany, perhaps reflecting the lesser importance of corporate giving and the greater traditional importance of the sovereign's subsidies to education and the arts. Menso Heyl has defended the use of das Sponsoring to describe corporate giving in exchange for business promotion, suggesting in the Hamburger Abendblatt (2007-08-28) that there was no other word in German to express this. He even offered the verb form as well: gesponserte Aktivitäten, from sponsern. More recently it has been plain that das Sponsoring no longer means mere sponsoring and appears to be developing into a general term for both giving and fund-raising. I attended die Sponsoring-Gala of the Sophie Barat School on 2007-09-04, which was in fact nothing more than a fund-raising event. Sponsorship was not invited: the donors were not explicitly offered any contractual opportunity to promote their businesses by quoting the name of the school. The term was then reported in this sense in Die Welt, the Abendblatt and the Hamburger Morgenpost. Capitalized, given neuter gender, pronounced with an uvular -r- and the second -s- as a voiced -z-. ... Read More