Fahrvergnügen Alöft

Remember "fahrvergnügen," the much-parodied slogan that Volkswagen used in its 1989 U.S. ad campaign? The ad jingle included a pronunciation lesson: Fahr. Verg. Gnu. Gen. It sounded silly, but fahrvergnügen was (and is) a real German word, meaning "driving pleasure." Like "schadenfreude," it's one of those words for which there's no English equivalent. Unlike "schadenfreude," we managed to get along pretty well without it, as it turned out.

Now Lufthansa is reviving the spirit, if not the letter, of those ads with its "changing the language of air travel" campaign. This time around, the words aren't really German--they're "Germlish" (Lufthansa's word, not mine). They're sprinkled with gratuitous umlauts and supported by needless pronunciation guides:

Eazenträvel
adj. (ee-zen-trav’l)

Der Schnöozenseat
noun (schnoo’-zen-seat)

Öntimenleiven
verb (on-time’-in-leev-un)

Nohassleböarden
verb (no-hass-ul-bord’-un)

Ach, du lieber! Das is sicken-gemachen.

Comments

[goofy]

The German term is actually "das Fahrvergnügen."

Those Germlish words look more Finnish to me.

[Nancy Friedman]

Goofy--You're right, of course, and I made the change. I had Googled the spelling I thought I remembered, and found enough hits that I didn't search further. Can you tell that German is NOT one of my languages?

[Orange]

If it's pronounced "on-time’-in-leev-un," it should be spelled more like Anteiminliewen. Leiven would be pronounced "life-en."

I'm a big fan of fake Germlich ("Mein Auto ist gebroken," we say around here), but Lufthansa's totally scheissy version is calculated to irk anyone who knows any German at all.

[Bob Cumbow]

I'm with Orange. This practice of sprinkling umlauts into words to make them look foreign, often putting umlauts over letters that never actually take umlauts, and then pronouncing the word as if the umlauts weren't there after all, is embarrassing to Americans and insulting to both Germans and language in general.

[Nancy Friedman]

Bob and Orange: I blame Motley Crüe. For more on the heavy-metal umlaut, a k a "rock dots," see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut

[Erin]

A couple of those (Schnöozenseat, Nohassleböarden) appear more like diaresis marks than umlauts, which might be slightly less irritating to the German purists. (Even if they aren't used correctly in that sense, either. ;)

[Jessica]

The heavy metal umlaut article has officially made my day, but I confess that's because I am a true believer in the Gospel according to St. Hubbins.

[Nancy Friedman]

Jessica: Ha! Yes, lest we forget, Spinal Tap is officially spelled with an umlaut over the "n."

[StCheryl]

Das fake germann ist rooineng mein zupper. Es ist ziech-mekking.