Random thought: Upside-down and back-to-front

[pne]

Occasionally, the thought comes into my mind that German has only one term "verkehrt herum" ("the wrong way around") for what can be expressed in English with more precision—the three expressions "upside-down", "back-to-front" and "inside-out" come to my mind.

For example, telling someone that they're wearing their T-shirt "verkehrt herum" is ambiguous between "you've got your T-shirt on back-to-front" and "you've got your T-shirt on inside-out".

Comments

[tungol.livejournal.com]

Now I'm getting images of someone wearing their shirt upside down :)