Hello everyone,
and welcome to our G__man Word of the Day, this time with a look at
die Lü cke
And I think you already know now what it is –
a Lü cke is a ga p :).
Here it is in a sentence.
- Der Bär ist durch eine kleine Lücke im Fluss geflogen.
- The bear flew through a little gap in the river.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Yes!
This example just happened. So what. Don’t look at me like that.
I have normal examples, too, though so let’s take a look.
Just mind the gap between intro and article :)
That’s actually good example for Lücke in daily life.
- Bitte beachten Sie die Lücke zwischen Zug und Bahnsteigkante.
- Mind the gap between platform and train.
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Bahnsteigkante… for real? Come on, German. Like… “Uhm… excuse me, by platform you mean the edge of the platform, right? I mean, I know English likes to be a bit vague. It’s fine. I just want to make sure I’m minding the right gap.”
Sigh… German really could really have a little courage to leave things unaddressed.
Or as you’d say in German: Mut zur Lücke. People say that for example when they prepare for an exam and there’s one topic that they deliberately don’t study for hoping that it won’t be part of the exam.
- “Ich glaub’ Adjektivendungen lass ich weg.”
“Wieso das denn?”
“Mut zur Lücke.” - “I think I’ll skip adjective endings.”
“Why is that?”
“Lit.: Courage for the gap.”
(is there a good way to express that in English? Danke :)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The really cool thing about Lücke are the super useful compounds though. I’m sure you’ll see some of those in daily life.
- “Heute machen wir einen Lückentext.”
“Juchuuuu.” - “Today, we’ll do a cloze/fill in the blank text”
“Hooraaay.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas sucht eine Parklücke.
- Thomas is searching for a parking space.
(specifically, a free parking space on the side of the road)
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- Maria hat eine süße Zahnlücke.
- Maria has a cute tooth gap.
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- Marc ist für Maria nur Lückenbüßer/Lückenfüller.
- Marc was just a short term replacement/fill-in for Maria.
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- Meine Erinnerung an gestern Abend ist sehr lückenhaft.
- My memory of last night is very patchy, incomplete.
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Cool.
So this is Lücke, the German word for gap.
Tadaaa aah.
And there’s not much more to say about it.
Now you might be like “Wait, it’s a nice word but … is that all?! Usually you have some cool surprises and connections.”
Well, I d o.
Quite a few.
And one is so cool, it might make your jaw drop and leave you with your mouth open.
Surprising Relatives of “gap” (premium trivia)
Or should we say mouth gaping? Because that’s the first relative of the word gap. Now, that relation is not a big reveal. But there’s more.
For example the word for one particular kind of having your mouth wide open. Need a hint? You do it when you’re tired.
Exactly. Yawning. Yawning and also the German translation gähnen are relatives of gap. In fact, the German gähnen is sometimes used as a direct translation for gaping.
- Die alte, fragile Brücke spannt sich über den gähnenden Abgrund.
- The old fragile bridge spans over the gaping abyss.
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The origin is the somewhat ancient Indo-European root *ghai and the core idea was basically gaping hole. So it hasn’t changed much. Gasping is another member of the family.
Or the German verb gaffen, which basically staring at something with eyes (and mouth) wide open.
- “Thomas, kannst du bitte aufhören, meine Schwester anzugaffen?!”
- “Thomas, can you please stop staring/gaping at my sister?!”
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- Gaffen an einer Unfallstelle ist jetzt gesetzlich verboten, und kann zu hohen Geldstrafen führen, da Gaffer die Rettungsarbeiten behindern.
- “gawking”, rubbernecking at the site of an accident is illegal and can lead to hefty fines, because “rubberneckers/gawkers” obstruct the rescue operations.
(what’s the proper translation here? It’s a negative way of staring)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But the real surprise are two words that come from good old Latin and Greek: hiatus and chaos. Yup, those two are related to each other. And related to gap. Hiatus is not THAT crazy actually, it’s basically a gap in time.
Chaos on the other hand… chaos seems pretty random. But it isn’t.
But seriously, the original meaning of chaos in Ancient Greek was somewhat similar to chasm… a gaping void. Greek philosophers used it to refer to emptiness that was there before all things but also for “world matter” in it’s ordered state; so that’s how the notion of disorder came about. And oh, speaking of matter… what’s the most chaotic state for matter?
A gas. The word gas is actually an invention by one single person, a Flemish chemist, but he basically made it as a variation of the word chaos.
Yawn, gas, chaos…. pretty cool right?
Surprising Relatives of “die Lücke”
But now we need to of course also look at the family of Lücke. And the closest , most obvious relative of Lücke is Luke.
And we can all do the math… if Lücke is related to Luke, then that that means Lücke is also related to freaking Yoda.
#nerd-triggered
Seriously though, a Luke is a small window or door-like opening.
- Thomas ist fast in der Dachluke steckengeblieben.
- Thomas almost got stuck in the roof hatch/skylight.
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Luke is not very common, but the next relative of Lücke is… das Loch. Which is the German word for hole.
- Ich habe mehrere Löcher im T-Shirt.
- I have a several holes in my t-shirt.
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- Deine Wohnung ist voll das Dreckloch. Räum mal auf!
- Your flat is such a shit hole. Tidy up, man!
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- Viele Studenten fallen nach ihrer Master-Arbeit erst mal in ein Loch.
- Many students fall into a hole after finishing their master’s thesis.
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Gee, they really need to fix that side walk in front of the library.
Badum tish.
Anyways, Loch is definitely a word you need and be it only to accurately describe other people… like… say… ex-boyfriends… or a waiter at a Berlin café.
- Der Kellner war voll das Arschloch.
- The waiter was a real asshole.
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And there are a few words based on Loch, so let’s take a look at those, too.
- Hör auf, mich zu löchern. Ich will dir nicht jedes Detail erzählen.
- Stop pelting me with questions. I don’t want to tell you every detail.
“lit.: make holes in me” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Bei der Firmenparty hat Thomas versucht, sich mit einem Locher ein Nasenpiercing zu machen.
- At the company party, Thomas tried to make a nose piercing with the hole puncher.
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- Ich habe ein löchriges Shirt.
- I have a holy shit.
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I wish I did. I feel so constipat… okay, this is getting really weird.
Time to wrap this up. Just one more weird thing real quick.. the relation that Lücke and Loch have in English. Because the English relative is… drum roll please…. the lock.
Yup. I though the same when I found out about that.
And I’ll leave it up to you to close that Lücke. Let me know your theories in the comments :).
So this was it, our look at Lücke and a whole bunch of trivia you can bore your friends with. Like… the word gas being invented by a Flemish chemist, modeled after the word chaos. The beer pong table will be empty when you tell stories like that.
Seriously though, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, just leave me a comment. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week :).
** vocab **
die Lücke(n) – the gap(s)
die Parklücke – empty parking spot on the side of the street
die Zahnlücke – the tooth gap
die Erinnerungslücke – the gap in memory
lückenhaft – fragmented, full of holes (not in a factual sense)
der Lückentext – the cloze, fill in the gap text
das Loch – the hole
löchrig – holey, full of holes
löchern – make full of holes, figurative: bombard with questions
der Locher – the hole puncher
gaffen – gaze (negative connotation)
gähnen – yawn, also: gape
We have a famous small town in Texas, called Luekenbach. There are pehaps 4 or 5 residents. It has an outdoor venue where local country western musicians play weekends. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard often played there. They even have their own post office. It’s a big attraction for Harley Davidson owners. It’s in the Hill Country in central Texas. Heaven on Earth!
Ha, yeah, that sounds 100% like it could be a place in Southern Germany.
But here, it would have 50.000k residents, probably some medium size machine engineering business no one knows and it would be so clean, it’s almost sterile.
There are two english words that compare with Gaffen.
There’s just ‘gape,’ which means to stare at something (with your mouth open) at something in wonder.
There’s also ‘gawk,’ which describes pretty much the same thing, but implies stupidity or confusion.
Cool, thanks :). Is one of the two used in the context of being an “audience” to an accident?
‘Gape’ doesn’t mean stare at all, it means to be open, usually dramatically. You’re not alone, others (Janis Ian among them) have made this mistake, probably because to ‘gaze’ is to stare at something. Your mouth can gape with your eyes closed and you can gaze at something with your mouth closed.
So regarding “Mut zur Lücke”: you mention it’s more like a battle cry ironically used to talk about a gap in knowledge/preparation? There’s an expression from Shakespeare that came to mind: “Once more unto the breach!” from Henry V. (“Breach” would be a gap in enemy lines or a wall.) It definitely wouldn’t work in the context of “I’m just going to hope not studying this material doesn’t come back to bite me.”
Trust my luck. (oder Lücke?)
You could actually just say that Thomas was gaping at Maria’s sister. That means to stare at with an open mouth.
Oh wow, easy then :)!
We say gawping which you can direct at Maria’s sister or an accident. Gawping at the latter happens in England and does cause further accidents sometimes.
Would this also be the word in more official contexts? Like, in a police reports? Danke :)
Oh, and what’s the noun… gawper?
Thanks for you quick reply. Neither gape nor gawk really works but gawk is closer, though rarely used. Gawping is in common usage but not employed in any official context. There is not I think currently a noun associated with it. (Haven’t look it up in OED as I’ve been away.) Another possible phrase would be I’m chancing it’ or ‘taking a chance’ – implying volition and risk. All best .
This is a mistake commonly made because of the similarity to ‘gaze’, which means to stare.
Could this be a BE vs AE thing?
“Mut zur Lücke” – I can’t come up with any modern AE idiom that’s close to that. I ran across a line in German that translated to something like “You should have courage that the gap in your knowledge will not hinder you terribly though out your life.” As if we might say to someone, ” ‘nobody knows everything’, so be confident.” . .. With that in mind, “courage for the gap” makes sense to me.
It has nothing in regard to courage, but, at least in America, we might say I will “just let well enough do”. Along the line of what Bill wrote, “I’m so weary of studying, so que será, será.”
Oh, your example was probably using the word “Wissenslücke” in German, right?
That’s literally a gap in knowledge.
Mut zur Lücke is more like a battle cry before a test than a factual description of reality :)
You could say – take a leap into the dark.
This sounds both chancey and bold.
The thing with “Mut zur Lücke” is that you are fully aware that if the Lücke ends up being a topic, you’ll be screwed. So it’s a bit like leaping into the dark, hoping that it’s not dark there :)
“The old fragile bridge spans over the gaping abyss.” In english we’d normally leave out ‘over’, and just ‘span the gaping abyss’
Is it wrong to have it there or just odd?
Since no-one else has answered that question – to me it’s wrong. Understandable (both in the sense that the meaning is clear and that it’s easy to see how the mistake arises), but wrong. Span says all that’s needed. Stretches over (or across), arches over (or across), reaches over (…), but just spans.
Danke :)
I was asking because in German it’s different.
– Die Brücke spannt sich über den Fluss.
– Die Brücke überspannt den Fluss.
Both are NOT very idiomatic phrasings but “spannen” alone means “to insert tension”.
– Die Brücke spannt den Fluss.
That sounds like the bridge is stretching the river somehow… pipe dream material.
It seemseems as if German likes to make absolutely sure we’ve got the point. If I were wanting to express this, I’d say The fragile old bridge spanned the abyss. (Assuming abysses gape is okay.) We don’t have rules for word order like Germans do but English English native speakers wouldn’t say old, fragile.
Oh, that :). English actually has a very clear cut rule for the order of adjectives. I talked about the differences between German and English in last year’s Advent Calendar
https://yourdailygerman.com/2016/12/05/advent-calendar-order-of-adjectives/
But I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get that part of English right :)
To say span over would be redundant.
Oh and die Lösung, the solution, because it fills a hole of knowledge? Maybe I’m not sleeping enough but it could be connected with some super special mind yoga?
Your mind yoga is strong, my friend! Books and sources will try to lure you away from what makes sense. Don’t listen to them.
(Lösung comes from “los” and is about freeing).
But seriously… having this kind of creativity is GREAT. Sometimes you find a connection, other times you’re off (happens to me all the time, I’m guessing around a lot), but you can use any connection to remember words.
What about löschen ergo to delete something. Does that not count as part of the family, by removing or deleting it leaves a gap. Surely it’s connected
Your reasoning makes much more sense than the actual relation of “löschen” which is most likely “to lie/liegen”. I think the common idea is “going to rest”.
But hey… just as Stephen Colbert said “Who’s an etymological dictionary to tell us what löschen is related to? ” :).
Löschen – Lücke… it really does make sense.
By the way, I would have reckoned “löschen” was related to “to lose”… but no :)
I would think it’d mean “ein kleines Los.” :D
The best translation I can give you for “Mut zur Lücke” is “to wing something” or to “hope for the best” or maybe even combining them. I’ll give you an some examples in context:
“I’m not going to study adjective endings. I’m just going to wing it.”
“I’m not going to study adjective endings. I’m just going to hope for the best.”
“I’m not going to study adjective endings. I’m just going to wing it and hope for the best.”
Some other possible translations:
“Let the cards fall where they may.”
“Leave it up to chance.”
I think “leave it up to chance” and “hope for the best” are the best fits because they have this notion of a gamble. You know that they can’t cover everything in the exam and you gamble that you leave out the right topic in preparation. Winging it is more wholesome, I feel like, and you’re planning to actually pull it off without preparation, whereas when you study using the “Mut zur Lücke”-approach, you know you’re screwed if adjective endings ends up a topic.
Es sieht so aus, als ob Deutsch wohl eine Redewendung für jeden Umstand hat. Leider ist “Mut zur Lücke” nicht übersetzbar, aber man könnte was wie “Hoping it doesn’t come up” sagen. “Gaze” besagt, dass jemand ganz abgelenkt bei etwas ist, aber “gawk” ist gut um einen neugierigen zu beschreiben. Wir sagen auch in Großbritannien “gawp”. Ein beliebtes Wort in so einem Umstand wird auch “rubberneck/ rubbernecking/ rubbernecker” sein.
Danke dir. “rubberneck” weil man den Kopf dreht, oder :)?
Und WOW… dein Deutsch ist echt gut!!! Zwei kleine Korrekturen:
– Wir sagen auch in GB…
Besser wäre: “wir sagen in GB auch..”
Wenn das “auch” vor GB kommt, dann klingt das so, als ob GB zu einem anderen Land dazugestellt werden soll, wo man das auch sagt.
– … in so einem Umstand…
Besser ist “in so einer Situation/in so einem Kontext”. Umstand ist zu abstrakt. Und es klingt immer ein bisschen nach “umständlich” :)
Danke für die hilfreichen Korrekturen Emanuel und auch für die freundlichen Komplimente. Du hast recht. Normalerweise “Rubbernecking” würde den Kopf benötigen zu drehen, aber trotzdem wird es häufig unrichtig verwendet.
Ist das in Großbritanien auch illegal? In Deutschland wurde vor kurzem ein Gesetz gemacht, da die Leute alles mit ihren Handies filmen und im Weg rumstehen. Fotos machen und Filmen kann richtig teuer werden… oder bis zu 2 Jahre Haft.
Ich glaube nicht so, mindestens habe ich davon noch nie gehört. Vielleicht gibt es keine Not, seitdem die Britische so schüchtern sind!
Oh, hier gibt es ein paar interessante Fehler :)
– Ich glaube nicht so… ohne “so”
– …, mindestens habe ich… hier ist “zumindest” die richtige Wahl
– …, seitdem Britische…
“seitdem” funktioniert nur für zeitliches “since”, nicht für Gründe. Da brauchst du “weil”. Und nicht Britische sondern “Briten” oder “Britische Leute”
Danke nochmals!