Comment on What a gentleman
frog@feddit.uk 1 day agoIn American English, a stool can also mean furniture and poop. (I am guessing this comes directly from German.)
The comment, you replied to, makes sense because in American English a stool and a chair are different types of sitting furniture. The difference being a stool has no or limited back support and can be counter height.
LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Great to see a fellow frog in the wild!
The German and English wikipedia have interesting information about the etymology of the English chair and the German Stuhl:
Chair:
Stuhl:
(Old high German stuol meaning ‘seat’ or ‘throne’
(The word Stuhl is built from the proto-indo-european language by adding the suffix ‘l’ to the root ‘*stā’ or ‘*stǝ’ which means ‘to stand’)
So both means seat/seating or throne but chair is more a throne-like furniture (by having arm rests and/or back rest) whereas Stuhl was more like a simple stool (a small foot rest or seating without any back rest or arm rests). In German we use “Schemel” or “Hocker” to describe such a stool. “Schemel” seems to come from “scamilla”, Latin for small bench.
I have no idea how all this information helps us, but it’s interesting :D
frog@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Yes always good to see a fellow frog!
So this meme would only make sense in Old High German.
That is interesting.
Thanks for the info.
LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Maybe I put it wrong, but it works even better in modern Germany: “Stuhl” means chair in modern German. The joke/pun is well-known in German: “Darf ich Ihnen den Stuhl zurückschieben?” So unlike in the English version, “Stuhl” literally both means “chair” and “poop”.
frog@feddit.uk 1 day ago
It’s probably me misunderstanding. Thank you for the correction.
gamer@lemm.ee 1 day ago
So what you’re saying is that the meme doesn’t work in German either, because the furniture in the meme would be referred to as a “Schemel” rather than a “Stuhl”
This meme is an abortion of human language smh
LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
No no, it works even better: “Stuhl” means chair in modern German. The joke/pun is well-known in German: “Darf ich Ihnen den Stuhl zurückschieben?” So unlike in the English version, “Stuhl” literally both means “chair” and “poop”.