Quaint Idioms and Expressions of the Pennsylvania Germans

[topaz]

This is one of the booklets that keyne  is preparing to get rid of.  After looking it over I may have to veto getting rid of it.

It is by A. Monroe Aurand, Jr.  The cover page tells me that he also wrote "Little Known Facts About the Amish and the Mennonites", "Little Known Facts About Bundling in the New World", &c.  (I can barely imagine what the "&c" might include.)

Some of the words in here have entered the common lexicon -- "slobber", "dunk", "dummkopf", "befuddle".  Some, well...

"Don't be so darn DOBBICH."
"Now I'm FERSHPRITZED!"
"Don't K'NOATCH the cat so!"
"Teacher was so FARTZOON'D at the way the boys behaved when the superintendent came."
"My man G'SHNORRIX'D so loud he waked up everybody."
"Kids at that age are so NIXNOOTZICH."

I'm going to have to start using these around work.

"Dude, take a look at this function Jon wrote.  I love it!  It's totally MARICKWAERDICH."
"Oh, crud, not another NIDDERTRECHTICHA netdeploy bug."
"Yeah, you can go ahead and use that machine.  It's all OUSGABOOTZ'D."

Edit: keyne informs me that she already promised this treasure to beowabbit. It's a relatively short pamphlet -- I'll probably just Xerox a copy to save for myself. :-)


Edit 2: The full text is available online! I can't think why I didn't Google for it in the first place.

Comments

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

Most of the idioms made sense to me.... Mostly I had to decipher the strange spelling.
DOBBICH - I have no clue
FERSHPRITZED - sweaty
K'NOATCH - squish from knautsch
FARZOON'D - Ticked off verzoent
GSHNORRIX'D - I just try to fall asleep before my guy starts schnarching
NIXNOOTZICH - Useless or nicht nuetzlich

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Wow, very good! DOBBICH apparently means "awkward" and is derived from doplich.

[(Anonymous)]

My Great Uncle, though he lived in the USA for 40 years, would mix German with english all the time. My favorite was "*&^^%#$@@@ !!! I have my finger in the auto door gebanged!!!!!!"