h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's a rough translation/paraphrase of a little tidbit found in our local paper this morning. As I have often noticed British comedians trying to be funny with puns on the German word "Wurst", I thought it might be interesting from the Anglophone point of view.

It backs up my theory that if you analyse deep enough, you can reduce language to very few words. This shows that the same words even apply across languages.

Quote

In Old High German, WURST was not something to eat, but meant simply "mixture" - so "Wurst" came to mean "a mixture of meat", or more exactly, a hotchpotch, a messy mixture.

But the root of the word is "wers" or "vers", which means "confusing, muddled mixture" (I'll think of the proper English word in a minute, probably when I've pressed "Post" - that's the difference between me and a proper translator). The German words "Wirrwarr" (=muddle) and "verwirren" (to confuse, befuddle) derive from the same root and have negative connotations.

The word "Wurst" is closely related to the english word "worst", the superlative form of "bad".

Another derivative of the root is "werre" - which evolved into French "guerre" and English "war".

unquote

This was taken from a book written on the subject of Wurst and so does not delve very deeply into the etymology, but it is thought-provoking, all the same.

Wurst is generally considered to be an inferior form of meat, because it involves chucking animal parts into a mincer, including stuff you would not normally serve up, and making an unrecognisable mass, which is then richly seasoned to hide the unpleasant aspects. The results are, however, often surprisingly tasty.

But, as you can see, like many products that poor rural communities used to make of their waste (cf grappa/marc/Trester), clever marketing people have given it panache and class and convinced us that we are quite the gourmets when we pay extortionate prices for this cuvée of innards, which we serve with home-baked bread on rough wooden platters, or with expensive designer rolls on bone china plates.



German has several charming colloquial expressions around the word "Wurst" - here for your amusement and eddification, if you speak any German, are a few examples (and these are expressions I have heard used or even used myself):

"Es geht um die Wurst" - (it's all about the sausage) this competition/fight/project is very important - everything depends on the result.
"Eine beleidigte Leberwurst" - (sulking liversausage) someone in a huff, someone who has been offended, but is overdoing it a bit. Apparently, this should be "beleidigte Leber" - referring to the theory of the humours.
"Das ist mir Wurscht" - (It's all sausage to me) I really don't care. Note the pronunciation.



Wurst is such a huge subject, I could perhaps write an entry on it. That would probably involved trying out a lot of different sausages, cold cuts and pâtés.

Interesting! "Das ist mir Wurst" is in my Conchita Wurst Entry

I like the sulking liversausage, too

There is an Entry about some Wurst A653744 so that will be food for thought for you. Not my specialist subject, though, as I had an allergic reaction to some Frankfurters in England so I didn't eat any Wurst when I was in Germany a few years later...

That is a very informative entry. Thanks for pointing it out. It shows me that I know less about wurst even than I thought I did! We don't really eat it. I like it, but my husband doesn't, so it's not worth buying any for just the one.

Small children are traditionally offered a small piece of sausage in the butcher's or at the meat counter. My mother-in-law used to tell me that when she went to the butcher's with my husband as a three-year-old, he never wanted sausage and cried when he was offered it.

So we eat lots of cheese - which seems to be more expensive than sausage!

"It is all about the sausage" has been a kind of motto I've tried to live my life by and if you need a hand with all the sausage tasting for that article, I'm here!

Chitterlings: a citation in OED:

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Andouille, a linke, or chitterling; a big hogges gut stuffed with small guts [etc.], cut into small pieces, and seasoned with pepper and salt.

I never sausage a fascinating thread as this one.

paulh!
Interesting thread indeed - virrvarr and förvirring are adopted into Swedish, it was nice to know where they came from!