The LINGUA FRANCA Sprachschule blog presents one more „cake“ based idiom. Others can be found here and here.

I spent three days last week at a conference in Frankfurt. There were many excellent presentations and speeches by industry experts, but for me it was the opening keynote speech that really took the cake (den Preis davon tragen). It was funny and engaging while doing an excellent job of introducing the wider themes of the conference.

This idiom is commonly believed to come from dancing competitions popular in African-American communities in the late 19th century. The winners of the competitions would be awarded a huge cake – and so to win was to take the cake.

In today’s LINGUA FRANCA Sprachschule blog post, we will be looking at another popular English idiom.

Our company had a very difficult first half of 2014. I was really worried that we wouldn’t make it to the end of the year. But things have improved a lot, and we have orders coming in much more regularly. I wouldn’t say that we are out of the woods (über den Berg) yet, but I am feeling much more optimistic about the future.

My new colleague is a dead ringer (Doppelgänger) for our disgraced former CFO. It has led to some strange looks being exchanged in the hallways at work.

For a non-native English speaker, there are no clues about what this idiom means to be found in the words themselves. So, what is the origin of this phrase? A ‚ringer‘ is a horse substituted for another of similar looking horse to trick the bookies (Buchmacher). ‚Dead‘ has more than one meaning besides „not alive“. The meaning here is „exact“ or „precise“. This is can be found in many phrases; like ‚dead shot‘ (Volltreffer) and ‚dead centre‘ (genaue Mitte).

So, ‚dead ringer‘ is the same as ‚exact duplicate‘.

I had always thought of my colleague as a rather dry and boring person. But when I met him privately at the weekend, he was full of jokes and tongue-in-cheek (nicht ernst gemeint) comments. It seems it’s only at work where he is so reserved.

Our new boss is a strange character. His pet hate (Lieblingshassobjekt) is a messy desk. At the end of each work day, all of our desks must be completely cleared – not a single piece of paper is allowed. At first my colleague was resistant, so our new boss approached his desk at the end of the day and with one big swipe of his arm, sent all his papers to the floor!

An alternative version of this idiom, which is more common in the US than the UK, is pet peeve.

„I’m feeling a little nervous. Tomorrow I have to give a presentation to a large group of potential investors – and I have to do it all in French!“

„Don’t worry! You’re well prepared and your French is excellent – you’ll be great. Break a leg! (Hals- und Beinbruch!)“

This idiom comes from the superstitious (abergläubisch) world of the theatre. Among actors it is considered bad luck to wish someone „good luck“ directly – so by wishing them bad luck (in the form of a broken leg) the opposite will come true. Another example of a theatre superstition is the belief that it is unlucky to say the name of the famous Shakespeare play „McBeth“ inside a theatre. Instead, actors talk about „the Scottish play“ or „the Bard’s play“ (the Bard is a nickname for Shakespeare).

After many years at school and university, it was time for me to enter the job market and start earning some real money. But I found myself in the same Catch-22 (Zwickmühle) as many job starters. Every job I applied for was looking for someone with at least 2 years of experience. But to get this experience, I needed to find a job. Which no one wanted to give me, because I didn’t have any experience…

In English, a „catch“ is like the German „Haken“ – a hidden or tricky negative to a situation. The idiom „Catch-22“ comes from the  1961 Joseph Heller novel of the same name. In this novel (set during World War II),  any Air-Force pilot who asks for a mental examination — hoping to be found not fit to fly and escape dangerous missions — demonstrates that he is in fact completely sane and rational, because he has shown that he doesn’t want to risk his life. In other words, trying to avoid danger by asking to be found not mentally fit to fly, proves that the pilots are mentally fit to fly.

I’m travelling to a conference in Munich with one of my colleagues. We will be there for three nights in total, so I have only packed a small bag. But she is bringing two huge, heavy suitcases! It looks like she’s decided to take everything but the kitchen sink (alles Vorstellbare) with her.