The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #98605   Message #1957687
Posted By: Wolfgang
04-Feb-07 - 04:02 PM
Thread Name: BS: Cell guns
Subject: RE: BS: Cell guns
The "German" word for these phones is "handy". Our salespeople like to invent English sounding names (and pronounced) for new things whether these names are known to English speaking people or not. So in Germany this gun would be a handy gun.

Why is a handy called a handy?
Well, when a Suebian German saw a cordless phone for the first time he exclaimed in high surprise and in his Suebian dialect: "Hen di koi Schnur?" ("hen di" is exactly pronounced like "handy" in that dialect) which means "Don't they have a cord?" Since then they are called "Handy" in German.

Wolfgang (refraining to tell you the Suebian version since when Reggae is called Reggae)