Is an 'old timer' better left in bed or taken out for a spin? Just how you answer this question will probably reveal a lot about your relationship to the English language.
length: 0:08 What is an 'oldtimer'? MP3 (143KB) | WMA
To German speakers in Austria an old timer is obviously a classic or vintage car. Seems like an English phrase right? Well yes, but no English native speaker (unless they have been spending every holiday in Germany or Austria for the last twenty years) will understand what you mean if you try and use the phrase in this context. To an English speaker, like myself, old timer means an old person. Coming to Austria some years ago, I was astounded at the number of English words being used in the German language and positively confused by the misuse of certain words and phrases.
Oldtimer?
Anglizismen sind Out!
Speaking to a range of people one sunny Sunday afternoon, I soon discovered that the Austrians have a love - hate relationship to the English words bombarding their language. Most agreed that under certain circumstances using Anglicisms was useful and practical, particularly in a technical context, but many people expressed dismay that English words were being used in the place of perfectly acceptable German alternatives. Many were also at a loss to explain common abbreviations used extensively in the Austrian business and financial media. Could it be that C.E.O. stands for Company Executive Operator, as one elderly gentleman maintained? Unfortunately the correct answer, 'Chief Executive Officer' is hardly more enlightening and one wonders whether there is really any sense in using this expression at all.
Well the short answer is yes. Or maybe no. Handy is another one of those English words that have mutated into something unrecognisable to a native speaker. Probably invented by an overpaid marketing guru somewhere in Germany, the use of 'Handy' as a noun for a mobile or cell phone is a peculiarly German and Austrian phenomenon. The mobile telephone is indeed handy (in the English sense of being practical or useful) but whether the Handy is mobile is a question best left to the linguistic purists. Many Austrians that I spoke to were aware that Handy was a misused Anglicism, but other pseudo English expressions such as 'dressman, photoshooting, showmaster, beamer, popper, twen and sunnyboy' were not so easily recognisable.
Handy?
length: 0:24 Dressman, Beamer, Sunnyboy! Do you have any idea what these words mean? MP3 (394KB) | WMA
So we rolled to a stop at the sunny boy shop.
To anyone of my age and nationality (Australian) the word 'sunny boy' conjures up memories of hot Summer days and the childhood delight of pyramidal orange flavoured ice-blocks. To an Englishman the same phrase might evoke memories of a stern reprimand from an elderly relative (sonny boy being a form of address for a young male). You see, even among English speakers there is no agreement on the meaning of certain words and phrases and therefore it would be downright hypocritical if were to insist that these Germanic mutations were wrong. If an Austrian wants to call a good looking, cheerful, permanently tanned man a sunny boy then so be it. Languages have been borrowing from one another for centuries and it should come as no surprise that German speakers enjoy using the odd Anglicism. But has this linguistic thievery gone too far? As we English speakers living in Austria sometimes say: "It's basically wurscht to me!"
Österreich | 10.8.2005 | 16:36 
