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You are not logged in. [Log In] Wordsmith Talk » Forums » (Old) Weekly themes. (have been consolidated into a single forum above) » Loanwords from German » OFFESKEITEN Register User       Forum List       Calendar       Active Topics       Search       FAQ

Page 2 of 2 < 1 2 Topic Options #174770 - 03/15/08 07:16 PM Re: no way [Re: Faldage] zmjezhd zmjezhd Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 1617 Loc: R'lyeh Offeskeiten isn't German. What he said. I can't figure out what the putative word could be in German or any of the other usual suspects. the ending -keiten looks German, but yours is as good as anybody's what the offes represents. The -keiten to me looks like the standard German -keit, which forms abstract nouns out of adjectives, e.g., Niedrigkeit 'baseness' < niedrig 'base, lowly'. It's kind of like our -hood (cf. German -heit as in Gesundheit 'health') or -ness. Now it's possible, through strange transcription methods to posit a verb skeiten, which seems more Dutch than German, but that leaves the impossible offes (sounding to mine inner ear a lot like English office). The only place on the Web with offeskeiten is this thread (link). The single example of Offeskeit is a typical Google Books, old words in strange language confuses my OCR. I also thought for a second it could be Äffischkeit 'apishness', but I got over that. Maybe a nonce word, Auskeit 'outness'. No. Häufigkeit 'frequency, commonness'? Top #174776 - 03/16/08 12:42 AM Re: OFFESKEITEN [Re: R. Eastcourt] The Pook The Pook addict Registered: 02/20/08 Posts: 584 Loc: Tasmania  Originally Posted By: R. Eastcourt My dear, dead, neighbor used this word(adjective) to describe an ultra-conservative, boorish, gluttonous, self-centered, lazy, neighbor, of certain European descent. Is this a real word or did Jack just spit out pidgion German sounds? Phonetically it sounded: off'-ish-kiten......(add a country here) Perhaps it was Yiddish? Top Page 2 of 2 < 1 2 Previous Topic   Index   Next Topic   Preview Hop to: General Topics ------   Information and announcements   Q&A about words   Wordplay and fun   Words and languages in schools   Miscellany   Weekly Themes   Looking for (writers, speakers, ...) (Old) Weekly themes. (have been consolidated into a single forum above) ------   Words from medicine   Beheading words   Meta-words   Words from classical mythology   Animal Safari   Words with unusual etymologies   Eponyms or words derived from people's names.   Loanwords from German   English as a global language Print Topic Switch to Threaded Mode zmjezhd View profile Send a PM View homepage Add to your Watched Users View posts The Pook View profile Send a PM Add to your Watched Users View posts Forum Stats 6541 Members 16 Forums 12082 Topics 177719 Posts Max Online: 853 @ 10/23/07 11:39 AM Who's Online 1 registered (1 invisible) and 16 anonymous users online. details Newest Members Word Lady, olivetolaugh, Walker Smith, Slogantees, Julie Moffitt 6540 Registered Users Top Posters 13858 wwh 11493 Faldage 9618 Jackie 8651 tsuwm 6403 AnnaStrophic 6296 Wordwind 6081 etaoin 5379 of troy 4683 maverick 4186 WhitmanO'Neill July Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

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