Wie Geht's Kamaraden? [G.] Pronounced "Vee gates Comaraden"  and means,
" How's it goin' buddies?"
 
This greeting is typical when two German speaking friends meet each other.
In German high school class we would frequently reply to our "Lehrerin" [G.]
Teacher, female, "Oh the gate's alright, but the hinges are getting a bit
rusty!  Hahaha."
 
You know, I never did get an "A" in my two years of studying high school
(Gymnasium) German.  Maybe there's a connection there.
 
I bring this up because several times now I have received questions as to
the use and meaning of the German expression I use on the FML as an
intregral part of my monicker, my signature.  That signature is: Edward
Frettchenvergnuegen* Lipinski.
 
*Frettchenvergnuegen is a fun word.  To the credit of Herr Carsten
Ho(umlaut)fels, Du hast recht!  [G.] You are correct!  There is no such word
in the tongue of your beloved Deutschland [G.] Germany.  This is a word
right out of my fertile imagination, but, believe it or not, there is some
little sense to it, as follows:
 
Back in the late 1980's the German auto maker by name of Volkswagen [G.]
Peoples car, used an advertising slogan  worldwide to promote the joy of
driving a VW.  As some of you may recall, it was "Fahrvergnuegen," which
was taken to mean in Amerikanischer Englisch, "The Joy of Driving,"and
presumably at that, it implied driving only a new VW.
 
Well, I'm a lover of VW's, currently owning three of them: two bettles or
Kaefer [G.] and one squareback.  Is it well known that the VW design credit
is to Herr Porsche und Schickelgruber's little son, Adolf?  I don't
particularly care who designed them, but they are very fine machines,
nevertheless.
 
Soooo, Herr Lipinski decided to make use of the VW advertising slogan
"Fahrvergnuegen" for the benefit of the little ferret.  He simply removed
the part "Fahr" [Fahren: to drive or driver or driving] from
"Fahrvergnuegen" and substituted the German word for ferret [das Frettchen]
in place of "Fahr," to wit ... "Frettchenvergnuegn," which he defines as
the " Joy of Ferrets." Jawohl, Damen und Herrn.  [G.] Yes indeed ladies and
gentlemen (Edward knows just enough German to be dangerous trying to
screwup the German language!
 
Well, he looks at the issue this way: if the advertising Fuehrers in
Wolfsberg Germany can coin a new German word such as "Fahrvergnuegen,"
then what the hell, so can he.  Haw!  And he did.  He came up with
"Frettchenvergnuegen." By the way, it means the Joy OF Ferrets and not joy
WITH ferrets (nicht Spass mit Frettchen.) There is a subtle difference here.
 
The English language is a growing and dynamic language in that it
incorporates new words and many of them foreign.  I should hope that the
German language would be likewise, but maybe it, as well as Dem Deutschen
Volk, not as flexible nor dynamic as English and especially the American
version of English.
 
Next week:  Why the Frettchenlustbarkeitsfuehrer (I just love  l   o
n   g   German words!) has worn a World War 1 steel helmet at the ferret
frolics and that just happens to have belonged in all probability to a
departed, long, long dead (1914) German soldier.  I don't know - does
anybody really care?  It's a weird and perhaps amusing story, typically
Lipinski-ish.
 
Aller Anfang ist schwer [G.] Startin' somethin' new is kinda' hard.
Edward Frettchenvergnuegen Lipinski
[Posted in FML issue 2368]