pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
[personal profile] pne

This morning, Amy came to my bedside and told me, "I already got dressed! That is called that we can eat breakfast now!"

I had to think a bit before I recognised her construction as a lexical transfer from German "Das heißt, dass...", meaning "That means that ...".

I assume the meaning transfer came about something like this: heißen originally meant (I think) "to give [a certain name] to someone", and later came to be used unaccusatively(?) in the meaning of "to be called [a certain name by others]; to have [something] as one's name".

That, in turn, was extended in use for foreign languages ("'Salz' heißt auf English 'salt'" - "'Salz' is called 'salt' in English) and then, by analogy, to mean "mean" ("'Salt', in English, means 'Salz'), and then even in the same language.

Anyway, I found it amusing to hear "that is called" for "that means".


Unrelatedly, Amy used to use "look out" for "pick (out)", as in "I'll look out a book for you to read".

I presume this comes from her equating "suchen" with "look for" ("I'm looking for my book" = "Ich suche mein Buch" or, occasionally, *"Ich suche für mein Buch"), so that "aussuchen" (to pick, select; literally, to "look for out" or "seek out") becomes "to look out".

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pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
Philip Newton

June 2015

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