Fashion is something that is constantly changing, and languages sometimes need to create new words for items of fashion. Don't get any idea that I'm a fashion guru - I'm not! However, I was recently exploring some of these new words and thought I'd share a few that were particularly interesting.

(Arm)stulpen are knitted tubes worn on the lower arm, sometimes with a thumb hole. Sort of a cross between a long glove and a leg warmer, as in the picture above. BTW, putting the word into a Google Images search is a great way to check the meaning of a new word if it refers to an object.

A Crashrock is one of those gypsy-style skirts with the permanently crushed-look fabric. This word is linguistically fascinating, because it is an example of what looks like a loan word, but the German spelling reflects the sound of the English word, rather than the spelling of the English.

A Ringelshirt is a T-shirt or other style of shirt with horizontal stripes. Thick or thin, or even a mixture, but they have to be horizontal.

Loan words from English are often extrapolated when they have become accepted in German. The Sweatshirt has now been joined by the Sweathose, the Sweatanzug and even the Sweatrock! And then there are the "loan words" that are unknown in their original language: Pullunder, Partnerlook and Dressman to name a few.

Labels: german, IT tips, linguistics

I've incorporated a couple of new German dictionaries into my German translation page. The Redensarten-Index is excellent for idioms and phrases and the Mundmische slang dictionary is a good way to find some phrases that don't tend to turn up in other reference works. There's also a link to the University of Leipzig's Wortschatz-Portal.

On a personal note, as I hinted at in my last post, I have resigned from WMAC to take up a new position in curriculum development. The About page has also changed to reflect this.

Labels: dictionaries, german, website, what-is-new

I have spent a fair bit of time in recent weeks sorting through old resources at work, and it brought the topic of back-ups to mind. In this day and age, most of the worksheets and other materials I produce are in digital form, and like many others, I have vast amounts of data on my hard drive(s). The total loss of my digital data would affect me more than no longer having access to my cupboards, shelves and filing cabinets. Would it be the same for you? How often do you back up your files?

I use a great program called 'Lazy Mirror' to back up data to two external drives, one of which is at home and one off-site. It is free, extremely quick and reliable. It copes with me wanting to back up the same data to two different drives. It also has the big advantage of maintaining the original directory and file structure in the back-ups, which means that I can plug the external drives into another computer and access the files without needing to use software to 'unpack' them. It is possibly not the most straight-forward program to set up initially, but for features and simplicity of use once set up, I have not found better.

Labels: IT tips