How would you like your bread?
While in Germany about 10 years ago I went to the local bakery for a loaf of bread. The sales assistant asked me how I would like it. So I tried my best and asked for it to be beschnitten! The woman glared at me in disbelief and sliced the bread for me. Later I asked my friends what was wrong. I had actually asked for "circumcised" bread. I should have said geschnitten. What a difference one letter can make!
Sent by: David
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Regarding Mari Shackell's anecdote, beschneiden can mean 'to trim', but only when applied to bushes, shrubs, hedges etc. It's still not a common word, though - most people would probably use trimmen, stutzen or ³ú³Ü°ùü³¦°ì²õ³¦³ó²Ô±ð¾±»å±ð²Ô.
A friend of mine who was a German assistant told me of the time she asked her students what they had done at the weekend. One of them had taken their dog to have its coat trimmed, and said, Wir haben den Hund beschnitten. Unfortunately this means, 'we circumcised the dog'!
A similar thing happened to my uncle. He'd been working in Germany a short time and was cut off in the middle of a phone conversation. He found a colleague and told them he'd been beschnitten, what he thought meant 'cut off' from his telephone call. I think it was the roars of laughter that made him realise he'd just announced he was circumcised.
What a difference indeed, but I always seem to mix up g's and b's in German, especially bekannt and gekannt, which gets me strange looks.
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