this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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I love how the Germans use zeuge.
Tools? Those are work things. (Werkzeuge)
Airplanes? You know, flying things! (Flugzeuge)
Vehicles? Duh, the driving things! (Fahrzeuge)
Why make new word when two (or six) words will do?
I think it's fun how Zeug has gone from a technical meaning to a cute one.
The current meaning of Zeug is something like stuff or unimportant things.
It used to mean kit, gear or equipment though, which makes a lot of sense and is still visible in words like Zeugwart (equipment manager of a sports team or army).
With that knowledge, Werkzeug would just be a tool kit.
Same thing in Norwegian with "tøy" (verktøy, fly, kjøretøy, plus fartøy for water-faring vessels) … and then tøy by itself means cloth or clothes (also available through klestøy)
compoundwords are marvelous <3
coumpoundwordsareamarvelouszeuge.
It's 3:30 AM and I'm giggling like an asshole
No, compound words are usually just compound nouns. Exactly the same as in English, except the space is missing.
English does that too sometimes, look at the "closed" compounds:
https://eslforums.com/compound-words/
i really dont like that "compound word" is not a proper compoundword.
i hope my mispelling spreads far enough to remedy this.
Swimsuit? Bath stuff (Badezeug)
Bedding? Bed stuff (Bettzeug)
Lighter? Fire stuff (Feuerzeug)
Drums? Strike stuff (Schlagzeug)
Toys? Play stuff (Spielzeug)
Bandages? Bind stuff (Verbandszeug)
You can translate Zeug with thing.
Workthingy
Flythingy
Drivethingy
...
To convince someone? Over-thing them. (überzeugen)
German here. That's an entirely different word, with a different word stem and history, despite being spelled exactly the same.
Also completely unrelated to Zeugen (witnesses) and zeugen (conceive).
Fascinating
Honestly, I love this language. And I fully understand anyone who hates it.
Like... Fire things, green things, bed things, playing things and hundreds of other things. Love it almost as much as animals that are just something-animal. Like bag-animal (marsupial), beak-animal (platypus) or belt-animal (armadillo).
An armadillo is just an Illo with a gun
Witnesses? They're just ... things. (Zeugen)
the base noun is really "Zeug"