The Greatness of Genau, oder…?

    To the English ear ‘genau’ could be the name of an obscure, long-eared creature in a Dr. Seuss book.  Or an isolated Canadian fishing port.  Or a rare, odourless Swiss mountain cheese (served on a bed of pine needles with a glass of ice-cold Appenzeller Alpenbitter).  But to a German ‘genau’ is the most popular word in the dictionary.



    Or at least that’s the way it seems.  In the last twenty-four hours I’ve heard ‘genau’ dozens of times.  Yesterday morning on the U-Bahn two women were laughing together, sharing a joke, giggling, ‘Ha ha ha genau ha ha ha genau’.  I ordered a coffee at a café and the waitress replied, ‘Genau’.  On the telephone a Deutsche Telekom engineer confirmed that my broadband would be working within the hour with a definitive ‘genau’.  Last night a friend leaving a Berlin bar bid a kindly ‘Danke schön’ and the manager responded with ‘Genau’.  Finally this morning I reminded our son Maus to take his cereal bowl to the sink.  ‘Genau, Daddy,’ he answered.

    Now I’ve learnt that the Munich-based band Megaherz sing a song entitled ‘Ja Genau’, that t-shirts are sold in Dortmund emblazoned with the damn word and that some dog-owners have even named their pets ‘Genau’.  What gives?

    ‘Genau’ translates as ‘precisely’ or ‘exactly’.  But rather than on a racetrack or in a university laboratory, the word is used most often in general conversation, as in ‘Leberkäse ist weder Leber noch Käse.’ …  ‘Genau!’ (‘Leberkäse – a delicious Bavarian meat loaf – is neither liver or cheese.’ … ‘Exactly.’).  Lately Germans have taken the word into their hearts, and mouths, to indicate agreement.  In business meetings it’s used to confirm understanding, as in ‘Pay your tax bill now or we’ll throw you in jail’ … ‘Genau!’.  Among friends it’s heard as in ‘Do you really still like anchovies AND pineapple on your pizza?’ … ‘Genau!’.  

    The word has come to lubricate the grinding cogs and gears of German communication.  Its swift repetition, as in ‘Genau!  Genau!’ indicates enthusiastic agreement.  For example, ‘Shall we sail away to the south Pacific on my luxury yacht and make babies?’ … ‘Genau!  Genau!’.  Conversely when the word is dragged out, as in ‘Genaaaauuuuu…’, it means ‘Slow down, mate, I’m having difficulty following you’.

    ‘Genau’ is one of those quirks common to every language, a word which is used beyond its precise meaning.  Its colloquial English equivalents are ‘definitely’, ‘understood’, ‘gotchya’, even the dated ‘right on’ (speakers of American English especially will recall how irritating ‘right on’ can be).

    Another German linguist oddity is ‘Na?’, which is among the world’s most succinct (and to some minds rudest) greetings.  Its equivalent is the English ‘Alright?’, the Irish ‘Howrya?’ and the American ‘What’s happening?’.  ‘Na?’ is always a question, and never used within a proper sentence, except perhaps in ‘Na, du, alles klar?’ (‘Hey, man, everything OK with you?’).

    Then there’s the maddening ‘ja, logo’ which means ‘yes, of course’ (‘logo’ being a truncation of ‘logisch’ or ‘logical’).  I know an Australian living in Kiel who has threaten to inflict bodily injury on the next German who says ‘ja, logo’ to him.  There’s also ‘doch’ and ‘doch doch’ and even ‘doch doch doch’, a tongue-twisting peculiarity which I can’t translate (my German-English dictionary defines it as ‘yet, though, nevertheless, however’ but – when used by itself – it means none of these things).

    Canadians with their native humility (or insecurity) have long been criticised for turning every statement into a question.  For example the colloquial ‘Take off, eh?’ means ‘That’s amazing, isn’t it?’ as well as ‘Get out of my life, if you would be so kind?’  A Canadian trying to entice someone to sail away on an illicit cruise might say, ‘Let’s paddle my canoe to Saskatoon and sink a few brew, eh?’  Hence, even though I’m uneasy with ‘genau’ and ‘ja, logo’, I feel very much at home with the current use of ‘…oder…?’

    ‘Oder’ translates as ‘or’ and Germans often place the word at the end of their sentences as a rudimentary invitation for the listener’s opinion.  For example, ‘Magst du das, oder…?’ (‘Do you like that, or…?’) and ‘Es wäre gut, einen jährlichen Gesundheits-Check zu machen, bevor wir uns für immer verabschieden, oder...?’  (‘Have a health check before we sail away for eternity, or…?’)  ‘Oder’ is similar to the Canadian ‘…eh…?’ as well as the English ‘…don’t you think?’ or ‘…init?’

    Are there any other German linguistic quirks out there?  Genau.  So please post them here on the blog, oder…?