Wednesday, 10 April 2013

German Compound Words

I've been having a friendly debate with a German speaking colleague at work about the utility of German compound words.  She thinks they're great, I think they are confusing and pointless but also strangely amusing, which is why I keep the debate going.  A case in point, I was excited to come across a new one today: Flüssigmetallblasensäulenreaktor or liquid-metal bubble column reactor from our good friends at the Karlsruher Flüssigmetalllabor (Karlsruhe Liquid-metal Laboratory) itself another cool example of the genre which amazingly manages to create a word with a triple "L", excellent Elling there from the lads at KALLA as they are confusingly known - you'd think it would be KF, wouldn't you?

Interestingly after reiterating the same old guff that she thinks they are great and doesn't have a problem working out which word is which she then misread it as Flüssigmetallblasensäurenreaktor or liquid-metal bubble acids reactor - which could be a problem if you were trying to build one.  If I had been making a point that would have proved it, whatever it was.  Fortunately I wasn't, they just make me laugh.

Anyway, I don't see how liquidmetalbubblecolumnreactor is in any way better than liquid-metal bubble column reactor - unless you are tweeting about them.

That is all.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are now moderated...