Darrel Knutson, whom I mentioned in the last entry, has an excellent list of Vulgar Vocabulary on his website.

The list is divided into ‘What to say to a friend’ and ‘What to say in front of your mother’.

Opinions differ, and I’m afraid my mother would not have been a good yardstick, but it’s worth noting that many German speakers seem to think the F-word is used more widely in English than it in fact is (see comment from An Austrian at the bottom of this page.

Note that Darrel’s alternatives are for the USA. Perhaps we should translate it into British English! For instance, ‘shoot’ is US, and so are numerous other bits.

More on the topic at Wikipedia. The topic has also been touched on by Mark Liberman at Language Log.

www.mediadeck.de
bq. Auf einem Parkdeck in Hamburg arbeiten 26 Multimedia-Firmen ganz gemütlich zusammen.

Bilder auch von dort nistenden Bachstelzen und Enten (von den Bachstelzen gibt es sogar eine kleine Videoaufnahme). (Auf “biotop” klicken).

Darrel Knutson is a co-founder of mediadeck, a collaboration of 26 multimedia firms sharing office space on the sixth floor of a 1960s multistorey car park in Hamburg. mediadeck is the main lessee, and smaller firms can rent office space and become part of Mediadeck. Darrel is described as an internet trainer, webmaster, translator and English trainer.

Some translators are listed under ‘bord services’.

What first caught my eye was the section ‘biotop’ with photos and videoclip of a nest of pied wagtails and photos of a mallard and chicks, all bred on the ‘balcony’.

(Thanks to Matthew Harris of context for extra information)

In a similar vein, Boing Boing recently linked to a webcam at the ‘Pig Brother’ (!)site showing a family of wild boars in Germany (originally via Darren Barefoot and CNN). Microphones and video-camera 24 hours a day.

There are a number of webcams watching storks’ nests in Germany too, for instance storchennest.de.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Auf Bild klicken zum Vergrößern.

This is the Liebfrauenmünster in Wolframs-Eschenbach, the site of the poet’s tomb (which I may have missed). The sign certainly leaves one speechless.

Liebfrauenmünster, Wolframs-Eschenbach.

Besucher aus Mainz, bevor sie das Spiel verloren.
Visitors from Mainz before they lost.

According to the Fürther/Nürnberger Nachrichten, something called an ‘overfly’ is to be built to ease the traffic situation on the motorways around Nuremberg.

I am still trying to work out what this is. It cannot be a hoverfly (Schwebefliege)
and it can’t be a flyover (see the ‘temporary’ flyover at Gallows Corner in Romford that has long since ceased to be temporary).

They are widening one road and also rebuilding an autobahn junction, using this overfly, which is also called a ‘direct ramp’ (Direktrampe). This will take lorries from the A73 to the A6.

The more I think about it, the more I think it means ‘bypass’. But of course, the word ‘Bypass’ is already used in German in the medical sense, so perhaps they don’t realize it has a wider meaning. ‘Umgehungsstraße’ means a road bypassing a town, and this overfly is probably bypassing a motorway junction. It’s rather reminiscent of the German ‘Pullunder’ (something with shorter sleeves than a pullover?)

I found another Overfly, one that didn’t need to be built in Cologne. This is defined as (text from FDP site):

bq. Schließlich fordert die FDP-Fraktion, dass die Pläne zur Errichtung eines sogenannten Overflys, das ist ein Brückenbauwerk, das im Falle eines Ausbaus des Godorfer Hafens die Stadtteile Godorf und Sürth vor den entstehenden Verkehrsbelastungen durch Lkw schützen soll, aufrechterhalten werden.

bq. (…what is known as a overfly, a bridge structure – if the Godorf harbour were expanded, this is intended to protect the districts of Godorf and Sürth from the heavy lorry traffic that would develop…)

So this would mean a raised structure, a flyover, for lorries only.