BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 02:12 PM

By the quotations of the OP, the Danes and Norwegians may primarily feel offended. It was McGrath who mentioned clichés about German tourists, common in England and some other countries, but probably not that much in Ireland, where they may indulge in wanderlust as camping backpackers.

(Ron, nicht schlecht, deine Sprachkenntnisse! Bleibauch, nur keine Aufregung am falschen Ort.)

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 10:03 AM

Sie hat mit der Teilnehmung eines Buehnenstuecks zu tun.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 09:55 AM

Wir sollen deswegen vielleicht doch Verstehung fuer so eine Diskussion haben.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 09:52 AM

Nur dass es is vielleicht moeglich dass einige Leute hier sind selber gegen so einen Ausdruck.   Der Ausdruck kommt auf jeden Fall scheinbar aus den 80's.

Wir sollen deswegen vielleicht Verstehung fuer diese Diskussion haben.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 09:41 AM

Ganz genau. Wollte ich gerade sagen.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Leadbelly
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 09:02 AM

Was für eine saublöde Diskussion. Verdient keine Übersetzung.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 06:40 AM

Wot McGrath and Peter just said -
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 05:05 AM

Yes, no slang involved, just Germans. Tourists. Sounds very 1980-ish.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 04:40 AM

Bev and Jerry, can you tell us when the play was written?

Tourists have always and everywhere been a target of taunting, all the more so if their money is badly needed. Typical national profiles and prejudices vary, though, and depend on both nations involved. England and Ireland are very different in this respect, and even likely to attract different types of tourists.

The simplest explanation is of course that at that time, Germans were by far the largest group of tourists in Europe, before Americans and Japanese took over. Moreover, Americans and other English-speakers traveling to Ireland were often searching for their "roots", which made for quite a different emotional situation. (In other countries including England, Americans mentioning their local ancestors won't be bought a beer, unless they display a keen effort to learn about the country. Irish, it seems, have a particularly soft spot for their lost relatives - see the "Irish famine" thread.)

We need statements from residents of Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 02:26 AM

Kind of like in Juneau where we tend to call all tourist-shop meccas in town "T-shirt shops" no matter what they sell in actuality.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: gnu
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 10:35 PM

"Term." Odd but, yet, somehow understanable, given the discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 08:42 PM

Once ask a B&B host in Dingle how it felt to live in the Deutschtacht. He laughed and said that it was a pretty accurate description of the place "these days now."

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 07:42 PM

Sounds like the same stereotype of German tourists you get in England - pushy and prosporous and organised, first to the beach. Anybody like that is likely to be assumed to be Germans. Unless they are obviously Yanks.

Like most sterotypes, very unfair as a generalisation, but accurate enough for a certain type. Who aren't particularly likely to be German.

Subject: BS: Irish Slang: 'The Germans'
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 05:15 PM

Jerry is rehearsing for a play that takes place in an Irish pub near Carrick (Co. Donegal)and the term "the Germans" comes up several times. For example, "You get all the Germans trekking up here in the summer, up from the campsite" and "All the Germans'll be coming in here and they love it". Obviously these are references to tourists but it seems like the term "Germans" has some other connotation.

And then at the end of the play we hear, "Are they from Germany? ...We call them Germans... Where are they from? Is it Denmark, or Norway? It's somewhere like that... Ah, I don't know where the fuck they're from."

Anyone familiar with this term?

Bev and Jerry