Comment by fuzztester

Comment by fuzztester a year ago

12 replies

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>The Jargon File also mentions that German hackers had in turn developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster, in broken English:[1]

    ATTENTION
    This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.
    Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is allowed for die experts only!
    So all the "lefthanders" stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies.
    Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked anderswhere!
    Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished the blinkenlights.
graemep a year ago

That is funny (I do not know German but it still made me laugh) for exactly the same reason as the Blinkelights version - the similarities between German and English that make so many works almost recognisable.

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wizzwizz4 a year ago

I have never been able to track down what "cnoeppkes" is supposed to mean.

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  • wongarsu a year ago

    My guess is "Knöpfchen" (German for "little button"). The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)

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    • master-lincoln a year ago

      > The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)

      Not quite. The -ke ending here is just another regional variant of the diminutive. The s at the end is a colloquial plural form.

      So the transformation from German to this weird german-english would be:

      Knöpfe - Knöpfchen - Knöppkes - Cnoeppkes

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      • sandbach a year ago

        Another detail you didn't mention: knopp or knoppe is a Low German (northern German) variant of Standard German Knopf. That's where the pf--pp alternation arises.

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  • kemitchell a year ago

    Кнопки (k-nope-key) is Russian for "buttons". Maybe related.

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    • pavel_lishin a year ago

      There are so many words in our language that are very clear loan-words from German!

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