{"id":5216,"date":"2014-07-13T16:42:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T16:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=5216"},"modified":"2017-11-15T15:00:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T15:00:50","slug":"the-german-wimp-a-broad-definition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-german-wimp-a-broad-definition\/","title":{"rendered":"The German wimp: A broad definition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Not<\/a>

Not for wimps! Photo by kbirrane on Flickr.com under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

Guten Tag<\/em>, and wilkommen<\/em> to another post on untranslatable German words.<\/p>\n

This week I want to talk about a word that I didn\u2019t know until last week, when a customer at work told me about \u201cthis German word that means you park in the shade\u201d. He thought it was hilarious, but he couldn\u2019t remember exactly what it was called, so I took the liberty to find out.<\/p>\n

So this week\u2019s untranslatable word, courtesy of Lewis, is Der Schattenparker.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is the meaning of Schattenparker?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Schattenparker is somebody who parks his car in the shade, for fear of it getting too hot in the sun. But unlike some German words which are quite literal in meaning, this word is a metaphor for a person who is basically a bit of a wimp.<\/p>\n

What does Schattenparker literally translate as?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Its literal translation is \u201cshade parker\u201d.<\/p>\n

How would you use it in a sentence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEr macht es nicht, weil er seine H\u00e4nde nicht schmutzig machen will \u2013 Er ist so ein Schattenparker!\u201c He won\u2019t do it, because doesn\u2019t want to get his hands dirty \u2013 he\u2019s such a Schattenparker!\u201c<\/p>\n

What is the nearest English equivalent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although there are words like wimp, wuss, baby, and expressions like \u201cAre you a man or a mouse?\u201d there is no word (that I can think of, anyway) that uses the metaphor of someone parking in the shade as an insult.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

But Der Schattenparker<\/strong> is not a unique word. There are, in fact, are loads <\/em>of words similar to Schattenparker.<\/strong> Allow me to introduce you to some similar German insults, together with their literal English translations:<\/p>\n

Der Sockenschl\u00e4fer<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe sock sleeper\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Damenradfahrer<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe women\u2019s bike rider\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Jeansb\u00fcgler<\/strong> \u2013 \u201eThe jeans-ironer\u201c<\/p>\n

Der Chefwitzlacher<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe boss\u2019-joke-laugher\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Socken-in-Sandalen-Tr\u00e4ger<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe socks-in-sandals wearer\u201c<\/p>\n

Der Zebrastreifenbenutzer<\/strong> \u2013 \u201eThe Zebra-crossing user\u201c<\/p>\n

Der Warmduscher<\/strong> \u2013 \u201eThe warm-showerer\u201c<\/p>\n

Der Gurtanschnaller<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe belt-buckler\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Beckenrandschwimmer<\/strong> \u2013 \u201eThe edge-of-pool-swimmer\u201c<\/p>\n

Der Frauenversteher<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe woman-understander\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Fr\u00fchbucher<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe early-booker\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Handschuhschneeballwerfer<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThe glove-snowball-thrower\u201d (In other words: Someone who needs to wear gloves when throwing snowballs, because the snow is too cold for their hands. This one is my personal favourite!)<\/p>\n

\u2026 I could go on, but I think you get the idea!<\/p>\n

I find it hilarious that these words exist in German. From a literal perspective, the pattern with them is that they all insinuate that actions perceived as cautious (using a Zebra crossing, swimming close to the edge of the swimming pool), tidy (ironing jeans), or for somewhat sensitive people (taking a warm, rather than hot, shower) are reserved for wimpy men. Therefore, any time a man does something considered ‘un-manly’, they are at risk of having any one of these insults thrown at them. They could also be used for women, I suppose \u2013 though words like \u201cDer Damenradfahrer\u201d are quite obviously aimed at men. The great thing is that you can use any<\/em> of these words to take the mick out of someone who is acting, in your opinion, a little \u201csoft\u201d!<\/p>\n

Judging by how many of these words exist, I can only conclude that there is no room in Germany for behaving like a wimp \u2013 and the German definition of \u2018wimp\u2019 is pretty broad, as you can see!<\/p>\n

In case you were wondering, there is no singular translation of the word \u2018wimp\u2019 in German (when asked, you\u2019d most likely get told the words Der Weichei \u2013 \u2018the soft ball\/soft egg\u2019 \u2013 or Der Schw\u00e4chling \u2013 \u2018the weakling\u2019, as well as a few other variations). But the Germans have more than made up for that with their inventive insults listed above.<\/p>\n

If you want to make up your own German insult, here’s how:<\/p>\n

1. Take a noun. For instance, Milch (milk).
\n2. Take a verb that has something to do with that noun. For instance, trinken (to drink).
\n3. Remove the -en of the verb and replace it with -er. For instance, out of ‘trinken’ you’d make ‘trinker’. In doing this you are now describing a ‘drinker’ (someone who is drinking) rather than the verb ‘to drink’ (note: this rule isn’t exclusive to all verbs but, as you can see from above, it does the trick for many of them)
\n4. Put the noun and the verb together to create your new German insult: Milchtrinker. This translates to “Milk drinker”.
\n5. Say it in a sentence: “Er ist so ein Milchtrinker!” – “He is such a milk drinker!”<\/p>\n

Please feel free to add more existing insults, or have a go at making up your own in German. And let me know if there are any similar words in English or your language! I would love to hear them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag, and wilkommen to another post on untranslatable German words. This week I want to talk about a word that I didn\u2019t know until last week, when a customer at work told me about \u201cthis German word that means you park in the shade\u201d. He thought it was hilarious, but he couldn\u2019t remember exactly…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":7471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[337680,357267,376023,110,350212,337679],"class_list":["post-5216","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-german-etymology","tag-german-insults","tag-language","tag-nouns","tag-schattenparker","tag-untranslatable-german"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5216"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9090,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions\/9090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}