Filth As Education

A great way to pick up German sayings is to read your local tabloid. Up till recently I've been reading Berliner Kurier. It is very earthy. A couple months back they relentlessly pursued (for about two days) a story on the squalid state of public parks in Berlin. They spared no expense on full color spreads of empty bottles, cellophane bags and soiled copies of the competition besmirching the city's green spaces. This uncensored Trash Porn provided a brief reprieve from the more standard variety of soft core the rag runs when its fearless journalists "expose" the "scandalous" problem of student sex workers in Berlin and hookup havens outside Barcelona, all alongside the daily spank bank you can find online.

Still, great reading to pick up very authentic local German sayings. When the litter piece ran, the front page screamed: "It looks like a pig sty out there!" In German: sieht es aus wie bei Hempels unterm Sofa.

Sieht es aus wie bei Hempels unterm Sofa.

Absolutely my new fave expression in German. It looks like under the sofa at the Hempels' place. Hempel is just a somewhat common last name in German, and supposedly whoever invented this expression knew some very messy people with that last name, then imagined yet abysmaler squalor under the sofa. Or maybe they even looked and saw it. Yuck.

Now, here are some more German sayings and read our past post on German expressions.