Comment by fuzztester

Comment by fuzztester 3 days 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 3 days 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 3 days ago

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

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  • wongarsu 3 days 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 3 days 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 3 days 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 3 days ago

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

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    • pavel_lishin 3 days ago

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

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