The Germanic Word Construction Factory

The Germanic Word Construction Factory
linguistics-memes, german-memes, language-memes, compound-words-memes, numbers-memes | ScienceHumor.io

The Germanic approach to word creation is basically "why use many words when one massive compound word will do?" While English borrows terms from everywhere like a kleptomaniac at a yard sale, German just smashes existing words together with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. That number "5555" becomes the tongue-twisting "Fünf­Tausend­Fünf­Hundert­Fünf­Und­Fünfzig" – literally stacking "five thousand five hundred five and fifty" into a single lexical monstrosity. It's linguistic efficiency through brute force. Next time you're learning German vocabulary, bring a neck brace – those compound words can cause whiplash.

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