I’m going to be in a lot of trouble when I move back to the U.S. from Germany. You see…to an English speaker, some German words just don’t sound quite right.  Like, for instance, this one:

No, I’m not calling anyone a bad name.  This is the name of a town on the Rhine River.  According to my German dictionary, those first three letters mean Ace.  Kind of gives a new meaning to phrases like  “Ace in the hole,”  “Having an Ace up one’s sleeve”  or  “Holding all the Aces,” doesn’t it?

Here is another not-so-bad-as-it-sounds word:

Would you be offended it I said “Gute fahrt!” to you?  Don’t be!  It means “Have a good trip!”  Fahrt refers to a ride, journey, or trip.  Gasse is the word for alley.  The above picture is of a street sign in Heidelberg, Germany. Sorry to disappoint you … this is not a place to go after you’ve eaten too many German sausages.

Then there’s this word:

The literal meaning of this word is “thick.”  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.  The above sign is from Esslingen, Germany.  It’s the name of a shopping center located inside an old factory of the same name. The company specialized in making butcher’s knives and tools.  For some strange reason, this company was never successful in the American market.  Perhaps they just don’t understand how we react to seeing this:

By Barbara Bunčić via Wikimedia Commons

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Driving in Germany with a Bloody GPS

Castle of the Weird and Wild