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Linguistic invasion: English is occupied like Sunbeds in Mallorca
There was a time – not long ago – when the English language led a quiet, peaceful life. It sipped its tea, occasionally complained about the weather, and had a good moan about the Americans changing spellings.
Forget Paris. Forget Tokyo. The true cultural shock begins in a Microsoft Teams call with someone named Leon who keeps talking about “syncing the backlog.”
Welcome to the modern international workplace – where Germans no longer learn English. They colonize it. English: A forked open-source software project. Now running on German logic. Rebranded and relaunched. Provided with 87 slides and an agenda nobody asked for.
The language formerly known as English is now operating under a new name: English Enterprise Edition™.
The Germans mean well. That’s the alarming part. They genuinely love English. But they don’t use it the way native speakers do.
They take the words, blend them into a linguistic smoothie – a mix of directness, efficiency, corporate bravado, high-concept business fluff, and heavily accessorized with jargon. And if something’s missing? Just invent a new word that sounds English.
The result is a bold new dialect where everything sounds vaguely impressive, deeply managerial – and, to native ears, mildly terrifying. Sometimes the only people who have no idea what’s going on are the Brits in the room.
- “We need a kick-off.” (No one’s kicking.)
- “Let’s do a short coffee break-out session.” (That’s… just coffee.)
- “It’s not in my scope.” (You mean… you don’t want to do it?)
What do native speakers do? Correct them? Protest? Laugh? They sit pale, taking notes, holding their notepads like they might protect them. Someone says “Let’s forward the deck before the next deep dive,” and they nod.
But secretly they compile lists of their beautiful, broken, wonderfully overengineered English phrases to share with friends over drinks:
„Let’s circle back for a cross-functional prognosis calibration session to validate the strategic relevance of our mid-term KPIs against the overarching transformation roadmap.“
English is no longer a language. It’s a platform. And the Germans? They’ve downloaded it, installed a system update, added PowerPoint transitions, and are now onboarding the rest.
So next time someone asks if you’re aligned on the learnings from the last touchpoint – say yes. Nod. Smile.
It won’t help. But you’ll feel better.
Puzzle time: Let the idiom guessing game begin!
- Some cards with quirky pictures and German idioms literally translated into English. What is really meant?
- Answers to the riddle come with a Union Jack: On top the German original. Which one is the the proper English equivalent?
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| Pseudo-English terms in German… | … and their actual English equivalents |
|---|---|
| Beamer | Projector |
| Beautyfarm | Spa |
| Dressman | Male model |
| Hometrainer | Exercise bicycle |
| Messie | Pack rat |
| Mobbing | Bullying/ Harassment |
| Oldtimer | Classic car |
| Partnerlook | Matching outfits |
| Slip | Underware/ briefs |
| Smoking | Tuxedo |
| Streetworker | Social worker |
| Talkmaster | Host |
Links to the last humorous Posts (Invasion 2.0):
More Anglo-German Updates?
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