To be fair, that's more than two words

VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 773 points –
99

High Voltage-Direct Current (HVDC)-transmission facility:

Hochspannung-(s)-gleichstrom-übertragungsanlage

!ich_iel@feddit.de hashad an ongoing meme conquest for memes facilitating the word Anlage, which either means facility or investment.

Warum ist das Fugen-S in Klammern? Es ist in diesem Fall nicht optional, da das vorausgehende Wort auf -ung endet.

wrsl damit die direkte übersetzung ins englische einfacher zu verstehen ist

Das was 9Bananas sagte, aber gibt es wirklich keine Worte, die auf -ung enden und kein -s- benötigen?

Guys honestly how can dyslexic people read these "words"

I would argue since that is a compound word it is actually much easier to read since you know how the parts are supposed to be spoken. If that makes sense 😅

Speaking as a German and a software developer: just because you can, does not mean you should.

Sometimes it is easier and better to not stuff words together and give readers a bad time than to write "Schiffsschraubeneichungsvorgabenverordnungsüberwacher".

Schiffsschraubeneichungsvorgabenverordnungsüberwacher

From google translate: "Ship propeller calibration specification regulation supervisor"

An English software developer would write that as, ShipPropellerCalibrationSpecificationRegulationSupervisor so only the camel case would make a difference here

Only a Java dev would write that abomination

Not quite, for Java you still need the Factory part at the end!

I hope it implements the ShipPropellerCalibrationSpecificationRegulationSupervisorFactoryInterface

German's more extreme compound words seem like a good linguistic use case for CamelCase.

CamelCase

Technically you mean PascalCase - camelCase starts with an uncapitalized letter :)

It would also make sense as the rule is to capitalise the first letter in all nouns

Sorry for replying this late, totally missed it but i like the analogy. But what would be the alternative? Creating a new word for every function?

P. S: Also SchiffsSchraubeenEichungsvorgabenVerordnungsÜberwachung is much more readable: That's why sir Pascal mounted a camel and created PascalCase and camelCase! (reading all the other answers I am proud that we collectively came to the same conclusions that it should be PascalCase!)

Got another one for you: Mehrlagensichtfensterklotzbodenbeutel The bag some cookies come in.

Mehrlagensichtfensterklotzbodenbeutel

From google translate: "Multi-layer view window block bottom bag"

There are no people with dyslexia in Germany. The Kaiser implemented these super long words as a eugenics project to eliminate them. It is a very dark part of our history only few people know about 😔

I know it's a joke, but with the level of scrutiny Germany has attracted for its dark history there's litle chance people wouldn't have heard of it by now ;-)

I don't have an official diagnosis...just tendencies and I'm and english native speaker, but I didn't have any problems with german monster words when i was learning german because they don't really look similar enough plus when you're reading you just kind of slow down on the big words you don't know and figure them out or look them up. I found the german convention of capitalizing of all nouns really helpful too for reading. Yes, i realize i didn't even capitalize everything i was supposed to in english 😁

I had dyslexia as a kid and long words freaked me out especially. I never realized that this isn't a thing for kids in other languages. But honestly: while they have a shock value, they aren't that common really

The really long ones are a pain to say to as well. You're kind of Strangling your self trying not too paus in the middle of a word. Only a problem for the awfuly ridiculous ones thought.

I'm in this picture, and I like it.

I thought it looked like some form of artilleri but apparently it's just a Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggning (in swedish) so nothing to dangerous.

Hmmm... I wonder what the elevatorpitch for a Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektriker is?

Hello! I'm the Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektrikersanställningsansvarige. Would you like to work as a Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggn..."

No sorry, I have to go.

But it's a amazing workplace; Steve, our Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektrikersarbetsplatssäkerhetsavdelningsledare, will take...

SHUT UP!

[Screamd while dashing for the elevator exit]


Do you also want to use a language with so beautifuly convoluted words? Then Swedish ™ might be the language for you!

Here are some of the most common words to get you started:

  • Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektrikersanställningsansvarige – High Voltage DC Transmission Plant Service Electrician Hiring Manager
  • Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektrike – High Voltage DC Transmission Plant Service Electricians
  • Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektrikersarbetsplatssäkerhetsavdelningsledar – High Voltage DC Transmission Plant Service Electrician Workplace Safety Department Manager
  • Sjuk sköterska – sick care taker
  • Sjuksköterska – nurse
  • Sjuk sjuksköterska – sick nurse
  • Sjuksjuksköterskasköterska – nurse that takes care of sick nurses

I love how all Germanic languages can pull that stunt. Be it German, Swedish, Dutch, they all have this magic "turn a sentence into a single word" ability.

Haven't you heard there is a Högspänningslikströmsöverföringsanläggningservicelektrikerstrejk going on!

Whatever a Hockspannungstromübertragungsanlage is, I see it as enlightened that the Germans haven't developed a simple word for it. Looks nasty.

*Hochspannungsgleichstromübertragungsanlage. But I have to admit defeat here, Hochspannungsgleichstromübertragung does get abbreviated as HGÜ, so almost nobody would write Hochspannungsgleichstromübertragungsanlage but rather HGÜ-Anlage, even if Hochspannungsgleichstromübertragungsanlage is a perfectly cromulent word.

High Voltage DC transmission system. So, not overly sinister, and probably needed.

Never thought about how many ways you can translate Anlage.

Anlage: Look what they need to mimic a fraction of my power!

You missed the gleich.

High voltage direct current "transfer" device.

Or simply a transformer.

But what's being missed is the fact that all German speakers will have a much better idea of what it is.

But transformer? Is it a giant robot? A car? Something that makes a giant robot into a car? Something entirely different?

It's almost like instructions for making one.

Its part of our "Bürokratendeutsch" (bureaucracy German) culture. In German bureaucracy and Law, everthing relevant needs to be defined by one particular, unique word. And this word has to be used in Laws, decrees and official letters to be legally effective. So if a new technology needs regulation, some german dork probably needs to invent a new word for it. For example: "Motorized Scooter" is officially called "Elektrokleinstfahrzeug" (electronical small(est) vehicle) instead of the im German commonly used word "E-Scooter" So especially for the technology sector a whole bunch of words gets created that nobody uses or know. Sometimes this words are so speciallized or uncommon, that even google/bing/ecosia/what ever doesnt know them.

So long story short: this word above is the official word, but most technicians working on it will just call it "Umspannungsanlage" or "Trafo".

Fun fact: 2/3 of the native German speaking population doesnt understand standard letters from local authorities, so some authority offices ad explanation letters in common german to the official, legally effective ones. Its called "Einfachdeutsch" (simple German)

There was a Youtube short I can't find again, that was like "It's a halmmensheizer. It sheizes halmmen! This is a Flaffenkuugler, it kuugles flaffen! This is a fokker. It. FOKKS!" I am reminded of it.

"It doesn't really Gustav Schwerer's because it's really not that feasible" got me pretty good.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

This?

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

This is today's version of "Eskimos (Inuit, I know, but that's not how the memes went) have __40 __65 250( insert your number, it won't be wrong) words for snow. This is for the same reason and is now largely known as wrong.

The problem is even German people (I live in Germany) also believe that they have a larger more expressive language than (for example) English... When it isn't true. German has either 5.3 million++ words or 135,000 depending on how you count them. In reality you can endlessly combine words in German together, but it very rarely makes it a "new word".

This is also largely responsible for why more English words have a Romance root than a Germanic one. English's Germanic words tend to be counted as their base and get combined as phrases, while its Romance words are more likely to get double counted in compound words or variants of different forms being counted as separate words.

If you compare german non-compund words with their english translation the german words tend to do be a bit longer on average. I think the same also goes for the word-count in german sentences

English has more auxiliary words so I think in word count, English as more words in a sentence.

At least it's not the worst one. I'm looking at you french

Spanish, too. Translating things that you lay out, like flyers or handouts, from English to Spanish is a massive pain because you need to rearrange for all the additional text.

2 more...

"Germansawordforthathave." bro they just twopreexistingwordsshovedtogether to makeanewword. Thatwecando too.

It's called lyrical art and I think it's beautiful.

I mean it’s like a built in parentheses from a functional pov. Saves parsing out what bag of words is grouped.

It works best with nouns, we even use suffixes like -ung and -heit to turn other words into nouns first.

Guten Tag

Was machen ihre Anlagen so?

Die einen stürzen ab, die anderen rauschen in den Keller

  • Jürgen, 52, Boeing-Investor und Inhaber einer Pumpenfirma

Isn't that the safe word from Club Vandersexxx??

Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenhalter.

Schifffahrt is spelled with triple-f since 1996.

Not the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft though, as it's referring to a company which was established prior to 1996.

Do you mean until 1996? Looked it up on Duden.de and there it's only "Schiffahrt" with the mention you wrote it "Schifffahrt" in the past.

No, since. In 1996 it went from being spelled with with double-f to triple-f. Since 2004 you can also write "Schiff-Fahrt".

But triple-f is the correct spelling to this day.

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Schifffahrt

Oh nice, duden itself isn't consistent with it's content. Searching "Schiffahrt" gets me the result that the triple f is the old way of writing it: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Schiffahrt

But I don't understand your last sentence. If both are correct than both are the right way. It's just like "größer wie xy" is correct for a couple of years. Maybe it doesn't sound nice, but it's correct.

Der Duden hat an vielen stellen einfach aufgegeben ein strenges Regelwerk zu sein. Wenn es wegen irgendeinem Wort Uneinigkeit gibt wird einfach beides erlaubt.

Laughs in Finnish

Finnish sounds cute.

Your username tells me this isn't the first time you've had that thought.

It isn't, but what has my username to do with it?

To be fair, Finns suck with yhdys sana's

Oh you're talking about people who don't know how to write properly? Yeah, some Finns have problems with that, given how common compound words are.

Hedgehog

I love how that's an example of an English word that shoves two existing words together while German uncharacteristically has its own word for it: Igel.

I'll start calling it a Heckenschwein just to annoy you.

I guess I'll have to call it an eagle, then! We need a new word for the bird now.

We probably do that because English has a lot of German

I know at least one; window. You took that from the Swedish word vindöga, wind eye, that means the same thing as window. But it's no longer used in Swedish as it doesn't really make sense since we have windows made of glass now and not just holes in the wall