Hi, I’ve just read this tweet by Sandi Bachom, an American journalist who is desperately fighting for her life. She uses the phrase ‘be a mensch for once in your life’. Now, as you might know the word ‘mensch’ is the German word for ‘human being’. How many native speakers know and/or use the word ‘mensch’?
Donald Trump,
you will never see this, I’m just a 75 year old journalist in NYC. There were 13 deaths in Elmhurst Queens Hospital today. ALL New York Hospitals will be FULL Friday and I have a fever. Please help us. We know you hate us but, be a mensch for once in your life.
By the way, unfortunately it’s too late for Trump to turn into a mensch.
I remember my mother telling me that there was also an American who once said: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’. Do you know this story? If you do, please, refresh my memory and tell me who he was, because I can’t remember his name. Torsten, I’ve looked it up and it was JFK. Sorry!!!
In Dutch that would be: ‘Ik denk mensen het ook zwemkledij noemen.’ ‘I think people also call it swimwear’. Yet, I’ve never heard of the word swimwear, but I think it’s clear to all of you.
Reading all of this I recall an interview on the BBC with Joan Collins. She said: “As a child I was always interested in words. One day I and my mother took the train back to London and on one of the walls of the carriage/car was the F-U-C-K- word. I asked my mother what it meant and she said: ‘Oh, my God, if your father ever used that word, I would immediately divorce him.’ So, I went to all of the libraries to try and look up the word in every dictionary, but none of them had an entry for the F-U-C-K word.”
I thought that was rather funny.
Oh and Andrea, is it true that in Afrikaans 'n driehoekiedoekie is a bikini?
(The same as 