If German was English
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I oversimplified a bit! Sorry!
Words always shift over time and borders. The words "recu" and "receive/receipt" are pretty close and used to be closer. To be more accurate it was "receite" when they adopted it from French. Compared to Latin "recepta" which has a hard P in it. So adding "P" from Latin to the spelling as "receipt" but leaving the pronunciation as Anglo-French "receite" was the most silly part.
Well, English is always silly with the various silent letters. The worst are the silent letters that nonetheless change the pronunciation of the non-silent letters nearby.
Like, I saw a place today named "something-valu", with no "e" on the end. With no "e" it should really be pronounced "valoo". Adding the "e" somehow changes it to "valyoo". Rather than changing the vowel sound, it adds a consonant-like /j/ sound (IPA) to the start of that syllable.
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I would argue that the correct translation of Zeug is more like "thing". Wagen would be "car" in the context of the cartoon. But then it wouldn't sound absurd and their lowball attempt at humor wouldn't work.
TIL some StarCraft objects are called Zergzeug
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I only did three months of research for this comic. Guess it still wasn't enough. Verdammte Bullenscheiße!
Common rookie mistake everyone knows you need four months
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Thing is litterally Ding in German. The term Zeug on its own stands for for all the stuff you need to have at hand to perform some task.
I don't think the translation is as cleanly possible.
"Werkzeug" can be both singular and plural/uncountable. When used in plural, I would agree that "stuff" is good, but in singular, I think "thing" fits better.
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I've learned that
Hospital = Krakenhaus = Sick House
Ambulance = Krakenwagen = Sick Wagon
It actually makes sense.
Fun fact the term Hospital while derived from hospitality is mutated for context due to the Knights Hospitallers. They built quite a few outposts that quickly became associated with medicine because pilgrims are stupid.
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"Stuff" should be translated as "tool", IMO.
While tool is great, I would say "gear" fits even better, does make sense as well.
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飞机 = Flying Machine
打火机 = Fight Fire Machine (wtf lol)
玩具 = Play Device(?)
工具 = Device
救护车 = Save-Protect Car/Cart (SPC? SCP?
Ambulances are an SCP confirmed?!?)The 打 in 打火機 is more like hit in this context. Makes a bit more sense with the way older lighters required you to flick it. But 打 is also used in a ton of contexts haha.
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Because it took me way too long: Beender=Terminator
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Me laughing at germans for calling hospitals "sick houses".
Me realizing hospitals are called "hurty places" in my native language.
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飞机 = Flying Machine
打火机 = Fight Fire Machine (wtf lol)
玩具 = Play Device(?)
工具 = Device
救护车 = Save-Protect Car/Cart (SPC? SCP?
Ambulances are an SCP confirmed?!?)手机 = hand device (cellphone)
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手机 = hand device (cellphone)
JīJī = [Redacted due to NSFW]
(I have no idea what the characters is supposed to look like, I just hear people say it 🤭)
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Because it took me way too long: Beender=Terminator
(there's an unwritten glottal stop between those two ee's, for anyone wondering)
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I don't think the translation is as cleanly possible.
"Werkzeug" can be both singular and plural/uncountable. When used in plural, I would agree that "stuff" is good, but in singular, I think "thing" fits better.
If it was about a real translation, I'd prefer 'device' instead.
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While tool is great, I would say "gear" fits even better, does make sense as well.
I agree. As I've mentioned, 'stuff' has more the meaning of Kram.
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the thing about compound words is that they become a new word and people usually don't think about them by breaking them up so they don't sound ridiculous. if another language has a dedicated word for it, comparing them with the direct translation of the broken up compound word makes a funny comparison.
if you'd like to break up some English compound words to see how they might sound weird or basic in other languages here are some examples:
- arm chair
- arm pit
- blue print
- cup cake
- dead line
- eye lash
- fire fighter
- fire man
- fire works
- home sick
- horse shoe
- lip stick
- make up
- news paper
- pass word
- pine apple
- pot hole
- work place
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One Word you mentioned showed nicely what you missed here: Plain
Originally it was called an aeroplane. This could be translated with "flat thing in the air". Which is exactly as ridiculous as your other examples in German. The difference is that Germans don't mind complicated long words where English does so they just drop the part they don't like.
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Me laughing at germans for calling hospitals "sick houses".
Me realizing hospitals are called "hurty places" in my native language.
It's sick house for some other languages too.
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There is a form of English called Anglish which tries to remove all non-germanic words, I think some examples are wordbook for dictionary, becleft for atom, sourstuff for oxygen and birdlore for orinthology
