Denglish
by Volker Weber
From the Lufthansa Website: "Die First Class im Upper Deck der Boeing". That does not sound strange to us nowadays, although this sentence has only three german words: "Die", "im" and "der". You could still say "Die Erste Klasse im oberen Stockwerk der Boeing" but that is not compatible with marketing lingo.
What the German eye does not see however is that "Die" is not only a German word but also an English word with a completely different meaning. So, while Lufthansa can safely put up signs reading "Die Erste Klasse", they should not do that with "Die First Class".
Someone told me they actually did that. I haven't seen it since I never fly that class. But I trust the person who told me.
Comments
Actually, why shouldn't they? Makes them talk of the town at least for a couple of days. And who knows, maybe bookings for first class are already skyrocketing because everybody wants to see the signs ;-)
When I was living in the UK during 1994/95, Channel 4 brought a German TV series in original version entitled "Die Kinder". All the newspapers listed the original title, but only the Guardian also had an explanatory note that this was about children, not about dying.
