Re: Inkhorns are a fascinating linguistic phenomenon, ...

On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:35:36 +0000, jerry.friedman99@gmail.com
(jerryfriedman) wrote:

[alt.language.latin deleted]
>
On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 6:19:10 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
..
>

IOne of the reasons I listen to MDR Sachsen’s
„Hausarztsprechstunde“
https://www.mdr.de/sachsenradio/programm/ratgeber/hausarztsprechstunde100.html
is for the non-jargon vocabulary. (It’s a radio programme aimed at the
general
public.) Like, of course I know that a pneumothorax is a Pneumothorax,
but
what’s equivalent to “collapsed lung” when speaking to non-medical
patients?

>
Do you practice in a German-speaking country?  Or in an English-
speaking country where you see so many German-speaking
patients that you need to know such things?

I have an article by Michael Frayn, called "Inside the Krankenhaus" in
which he goes on about how screamingly funny German medical
terminology sounds to English speakers. Actually he's taking the
mickey out of the Daily Mirror's chauvinism, in a series of articles
written by Auberon Waugh and his wife.

'The Germans are the latest race to come under their microscope. "Our
idea of the country," writes Mr Waugh, had been formed by seeing war
films in which all Germans shout 'Ach so! Gott in Himmel!!'" He was
agreeably surprised to find that this was not the case in the Federal
Republic today, and almost as surprised by the sheer variety of the
German race. "Germans come in all sizes," he reports, "fat, thin,
tall, short, dark, fair. Some are cheerful, some gloomy."

_Ach so!_, one feels like gasping. Thin as well as fat? Short as well
as tall? Some cheerful, some gloomy? Well, dash it all! Gott, as one
might say, in Himmel!

So the old prejudices and misconceptions are at last exposed. There's
only one thing in which Mr Waugh thinks the Germans might be
deficient, and that's a sense of the ridiculous -- a grave flaw, of
course, which sets them apart from visiting British journalists and
others. Mr Waugh thinks their language might be in some way to blame.

"{It must be very difficult to keep a straight face," he writes, "if,
when you go to visit a relative in hospital, you have to ask for the
Krankenhaus, or, when you want the way out, if you have to ask for the
Ausfahrt."

I suppose it must. I'd never thought of it that way before. I suppose
life must be just one long struggle to keep themselves from bursting
out laughing at their own language.

It would explain a lot, of course. That's what the object of all that
iron Prussian discipline must have been. That's what all those
duelling scars were for -- to camouflage the dirty grins on the faces
of people inquiring about the Ausfahrt.

Now that the old traditional codes of discipline have gone it's
terrible. The approach to every Ausfahrt, Einfahrt and Krankenhaus in
the Federal Republic is jammed with people falling about and holding
their sides. But that's nothing to what it's like _inside_ the
Krankenhaus. Inside it sounds like 14 different studio audiences
trying to earn their free tickets simultaneously, as the patients try
to describe their various comic-sounding symptoms to the staff. Here's
a new admission scarcely able to speak for giggles as he tells the
doctor he has a pain in his elbow.

"A Schmertz in your Ellengoben?" repeats the doctor without any sign
of amusement -- he's heard the joke before, of course. "Which
Ellenbogen?"

"Both Ellenbogens," replies the patient, trying to pull himself
together. "I also get agonising twinges which run up and down my leg
from my... from my..."

But it's no good -- he's off again. Unable to get the words out for
laughing, he points silently from his thigh to his ankle.

"From your Schenkel to your Knöchel?" says the doctor, the corner of
his mouth twitching very lightly in spite of himself. The patient nods
helplessly.

"And sometimes," he gasps, "and sometimes... all the way down my..."

He closes his eyes and vibrates silently, shaking his head from time
to time to show that speech is beyond him.

"Come on," says the doctor, frankly grinning himself now. "Get it
out."

"All the way down my... my Wirb... my Wirbel... "'

(Wirbelshäule -- backbone aka spine)

...and so on, through Verstopfung, Kniescheibenentzüngung (Housemaid's
Knee), Windpocken and a pain in the Nasenflügel.










--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk