Colorful German Expressions

In Girl in the Glass, when the Clypeate and Obturavi meet, they exchange some colorful German expressions. In the novel, their meanings are either explained or apparent from contextual clues, however, the more colorful ones are discussed below.

1. “Genug mit dem Gespräch, Arsch mit Ohren!” Garrett cut the old man’s sarcastic banter short, calling him an ass with ears.

Arsch mit Ohren, or “ass with ears,” is German slang for a stupid person. Click for a Facebook Arsch mit Ohren post.

2. “Ah!” the old man’s face lit up, exclaiming, “Du hast über den heißen Brei geredet.”

This idiom translates into, “you are talking around the hot porridge.” The equivalent American expression, beating around the bush, means talking about a matter without getting to the point.

3. “This Schweinhund,” pointing at James, “knows about these diamonds because he’s seen one, and knows where it’s hidden.”

“We hunted down that double-dealing, treasonous Schweinhund, Hesperus.”

Schweinhund means “pig-dog” and is intended to be an insult, something similar to bastard or son-of-a-bitch. It can also be used, when referring to someone’s inner Schewinhund, to mean laziness and procrastination.

4. Direktor Schmidt paused to process the insult, then shouted, “Du bist ein Schweinhund, dein Mund ist voll mit Scheiß."

Declan held firm. “Don’t play the naive rube, you know otherwise,” he said. “I’ll give you one last chance to prove du bist nicht not voll mit Scheisse.”

This expression translates well from German to English. “You are full of shit” is a graphic, descriptive insult that doesn’t require much explanation.

5. “Dummkopf, what did you do? Du musst Hundscheisse für Gehirne haben,” yelled the Direktor.

Another expression that translates well, “You must have dog shit for brains” gets the point across in both languages.

WARNING: Use the expressions at your own risk!