The Awful German Language (1880)

As a developer working in a German company the question of translating some domain language items into English comes up here and there. Mostly we fail because the German compound words are so f*** precise that we are unable to find short matching English translations...unfortunately our non-native devs have to learn complex words they can't barely pronounce :D

Most of the time we try to use English for technical identifiers and German for business langugage, leading to lets say "interesting" code, but it works for us.

I think the issue of German compound nouns is seriously overegged. In almost all cases, it’s essentially the same as English, except with some spaces. It’s not like suddenly a short compound word expresses something that couldn’t be in English.

This is true, but some German compound words acquire a meaning that doesn't simply derive from their component words. Well-known ones include Kindergarten and Weltschmerz. This is often the case for domain-specific terms (Gestaltpsychologie, Bildungsroman).

Don't forget:

    gefingerpoken
    mittengraben
    springewerk
    blowenfusen
    poppencorcken
    spitzensparken

None of those are actual German words. For some of them, I found references that these words could potentially be used in Pennsylvania, but most of these words are not even German, even when you split them into their components.

The reference you were looking for is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights

From your link there:

> written in a mangled form of German.

If you show this to anyone who knows German, they will recognize that this was written by someone who doesn't.

I believe the comment you replied to is what is known as a "joke".

Given that the commenter left another comment about having been misinformed, I don't think it was a Joke.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44008622