Whassup everyone,
it’s yo’ boy Emanuel, back at it with another GWD.
Hollaaaa!
This time, we’ll check out the meaning of
die Klammer
And the best way to describe the essence of Klammer is this:
holding something (by putting pressure on it) from two (opposite) sides
But what’s describing something when you can depict it. Behold:
( )
This is awesome because not only is it literally is a pair of Klammern but it also works as an icon for the entire Klammer-crew… and man, they roll deep.
So, let’s hustle some German…
(hmmm… I’m not sure if me talking like this really will attract younger listeners, but we’ll see…)
Holding something by putting pressure on it from two sides – such is the purpose of Klammer.
Maybe the most famous example is a Büroklammer, a paper clip. But there are some other very common ones like a Heftklammer, which is a staple (or stapler pin), die Wäscheklammer which is a clothespin/peg or a Klammeraffe, which is basically Thomas. Oh… wait… that’s just what Maria says. I meant stapler gun. Yeah, Klammeraffe is a word for stapler gun. But der Tacker is more common nowadays.
Klammer is the German word for brackets of all kinds.
- (): (runde) Klammern – parenthesis, round brackets
- [] : eckige Klammern – square brackets (lit.: “cornery”)
- {} geschweifte Klammern – curly brackets, braces (lit.: “caudated, with tail”)
- …
And while a comma or a question mark are signs that you usually wouldn’t explicitly mention when reading something out loud, parenthesis are… I mean, how else would the listener know that something is in brackets, right.
- Die erdbeerigste Erdbeer-Marmelade der Welt ( “Klammer auf” so nennt ihn die Firma auf ihrer Webseite “Klammer zu”) hat, wenn man genauer hinguckt, wenig mit Erdbeeren zu tun.
- The strawberriest strawberry jam on earth ( “open brackets” that’s how the company calls it on its webpage “close brackets”) has very little to do with strawberries, once you take a closer look.
If you want to put something in brackets, you’d usually say in Klammern setzen.
- Ich würde den Teil über das Geschlecht von Satz (Satz ist männlich) in Klammern setzen.
- I would put the part about the gender of Satz (Satz is masculine) in brackets.
Einklammern is also an option but I doesn’t get much love in daily speech.
The opposite however, ausklammern, is pretty common. It is about the exclusion that you can achieve by putting something in brackets.
- Der Manager klammert die Kaffeeproblematik beim Meeting aus, um nicht wieder die Polizei rufen zu müssen.
- The manager excludes/leaves aside the coffee issue so he doesn’t have to call the police again.
Now, ausklammern is based on the bracket-Klammer, but there’s also a verb klammern without a prefix. Well, it’s sich klammern, to be precise. And this brings us back to the holding idea of Klammer because it basically means to cling,
- Die Katze klammert sich an einen Ast.
- The cat clings to a branch.
- Die Fans und das Team klammern sich an die Hoffnung, dass der Star rechtzeitig wieder gesund wird.
- The fans and the team cling to the hope that the star will recover in time.
- Maria findet, dass Thomas klammert.
- Thomas finds that Maria is too clingy.
(The last context ist really the only one, where you don’t need the self reference.)
Sweet.
So this our word die Klammer and klammern, and they are kinda useful or something, I guess.
But what really makes them worth a word of the day are the related words.
Like… when it comes to related words, Klammer got game.
Get ready for quite the ride.
klemmen
You might have already suspected that clam and clamp are related. But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg…. like… an iceberg before global warming.
The closest relative in German is the verb klemmen. The first use of klemmen is kind of “to put something between a Klammer”.
- Maria klemmt sich die Clutch/henkellose Handtasche unter den Arm.
- Maria puts/sticks the clutch (small handbag without handles) under her arm.
That’s But maybe more common is the sense of mechanical things being stuck.
- Die Tür klemmt ein bisschen.
- The door jams a little.
- Das DVD-Laufwerk klemmt.
- The DVD-drive is jammed.
(won’t come open/close)
Of course, there are also a couple of prefix versions we need to mention. Sich etwas einklemmen is basically THE word for parts of your body getting caught somewhere, and verklemmt (klammer auf – you’ll rarely see the infinitive – klammer zu) can mean stuck but also uptight in the context of sex.
- “Was ist mit deinem Finger?”
“Hab ich mir in der Tür eingeklemmt.” - “What’s up with your finger?”
“It got caught in the door.”
- Die Leertaste auf meinem iPad hat sich verklemmt.
- The space bar on my iPad is stuck/jammed.
- Marias Schwester ist ein bisschen verklemmt.
- Maria’s sister is a little uptight/repressed.
Cool.
Now, we’ve Klammer with an a, klemmen with an e and since all good things are three it’s no surprise that there’s also a version with i.
And if you’re into fitness, you might have heard of it… der Klimmzug.
- Maria ist enttäuscht, weil Thomas keinen Klimmzug schafft.
- Maria is disappointed because Thomas can’t pull off a pull out.
Erm… I mean pull up. A Klimmzug is a pull up. We could think of it as a “cling pull“. You pull while clinging with your hands.
But klimm actually brings us to a whole new branch.
there’s more
You see, the verb klimmen itself doesn’t exist anymore, but erklimmen does, and erklimmen is basically an epic sounding version of to climb.
- Fluffy-Puff Junior will als erstes Einhorn ohne Sauerstoffmaske den Mount Everest erklimmen.
- Fluffy-Puff Jr. wants to be the first unicorn to climb the Mount Everest without oxygen mask.
So a Klimmzug is literally a “climb-pull”.
And it might already dawn on you – to climb is related to Klammer. Just like cling and clench and clinch and clutch. We could say the common theme is firm grasp.
And there’s more. We’ve learned that erklimmen is an epic version of to climb. Do you know what the normal pick is? It’s klettern. And it totally is related as well :).
- Ich bin auf den Baum geklettert.
- I climbed on the tree.
- Thomas macht Klettern Spaß.
- Thomas likes climbing.
And this is already quite cool, I think, but there’s more.
From klettern it’s only a couple of letters to the next word die Klette. A Klette – I think the English word is burr – is the “fruit” of a certain plant. It’s one of those little greenish balls that stick to your clothes and hair. And it’s also a nice (or not so nice) word for people who just won’t leave you alone.
- Der Hund hat Kletten im Fell.
- The dog has burrs in its fur.
- Maria ist voll die Klette geworden.
- Maria has become such a clinger.
Now, the principle of a Klette is that it has lots of tiny little hooks that link with hair or fiber. It’s that principle that inspired a means of closing for shoes and garment – namely the hook and loop fastener, also known as Velcro. Why are we bringing that up? Because the German word for it is … drumroll please… der Klettverschluss.
- Kannst du bitte aufhören, deinen Klettverschluss auf- und zuzumachen?
- Could you stop opening and closing your hook and loop fastener (Velcro)?
Pretty cool, right?
But wait
You see, what burrs and these Klettverschluß-things do is sticking, right? Well, that brings us to the next member of the family, the German verb kleben.
- Maria klebt den Kaugummi unter den Tisch.
- Maria sticks the chewing gum under the table.
- Meine Hand ist klebrig.
- My hand is sticky.
- “Thomas ist in der Notaufnahme.”
“Oh Gott, warum, was ist passiert.”
“Seine Freunde haben ihm bei der Party mit Sekundenkleber die Hand auf den Hintern geklebt, als er geschlafen hat.” - “Thomas is in the emergency room.”
“Oh god, why, what happened?”
“While he was sleeping, his friends glued his hand to his butt with superglue.”
And you might already know what’s coming… glue is also related to Klammer and again we have this common theme of sticking.
Also hipster’s worst nightmare is part of the family: gluten, the sticky protein.
And you know what – there’s still more.
For instance der Kloß, the German word for dumpling. Or clay. Or globe. Yes, these three are members of the family, as well and there are many many more.
So now the big question is what is at the core of this crazy family?
Well, it is the uber-ancient Indo-European root *gel- and its basic idea of (forming) a lump, clenching together.
Clay is actually a good way to think about it… a sticky lump. Some of the words we’ve seen are focused on the lump-aspect (globe, Kloß), others went all in for the stickiness (glue, kleben), again others shifted from there to holding (die Klammer, clamp) and some added the notion of upward (climb, clamber).
It’s pretty crazy, right?
But in a weird way, all this makes perfect sense.
Now, do remember how I said in the beginning that “( )” can work as an icon for the whole family?
Well, I made a little (not so serious) chart with it.
Maybe it helps you remember some of the vocabulary we talked about today, because that’s ultimately why we’re doing this stuff… to learn vocabulary :)
(click on the image to get the full size picture)
Now you might be like… “Oh. My. God… the Soviet flag, a fist, the earth. Emanuel, are you a freaking communist?!?!? ”
But you can relax guys. The fist is about clenching, the ideas of forming a lump and holding combined. And the Soviet flag… well, that’s there because of the crops. You know…for gluten. Which rhymes with … PUTIN.
Dun, dunn, dunnnnn.
#Emanuel is a communist confirmed.
Hmm… level of nonsense is rising rapidly, time to wrap this up :).
This was our German Word of the Day die Klammer, which was actually more of a look at one crazy word family. And there are actually plenty more words that we haven’t mentioned yet, in German as well as in English. So if you have a suspicion, let’s talk about it in the communism…. I mean comments. A cl/kl-beginning and some notion of sticking or lump is a pretty good hint :).
And of course if you have any questions about the article, you can leave a comment as well.
I know it was quite wild the ride but I hope you enjoyed it and learned a little. Have a great week and I’ll catch ya’ll on flip side.
** vocab **
die Büroklammer – the paper clip
die Wäscheklammer – the clothes pin
die Heftklammer – the stapler pin
die Klammern – the brackets
ausklammern – exclude, leave aside
in Klammern setzen – put in brackets
sich klammern an – cling to
klammern – to be clingy (context of relationship)
die Umklammerung – the grasp, the clinch, the “being held from all around”
klemmen – stick
die Klemme – the clamp
sich etwas einklemmen – get caught (for body parts in doors and the like)
verklemmt – stuck, also: repressed, uptight in context of sex
klettern – to climb
erklimmen- to (fully) climb (epic version, rare)
der Klimmzug – the pull up
die Klette – the burr, the clinger (for people)
der Klettverschluß – the hook and loop fastener, the velcro
kleben – to glue, to stick
der Kleber, der Klebstoff – the glue
klebrig – sticky
der Kloß – German dumpling, also: lump
Im Spanischunterricht habe ich mal meine Hand mit Sekundenkleber an einen Laptop geklebt.
Hahaha, warum das denn?? Und wie hast du die wieder abgekriegt?
Ich mache impulsiv jeden lustigen Gedanken, der mir in den Sinn kommt (ich habe ADHS). Ich hab sie wieder abgekriegt mit viel Wasser, Geduld, und Mühe. Meine Spanischlehrerin hat einen Lachanfall gekriegt, und sie erzählt ihren Schülern heute noch davon.
Oh wow, ein bisschen wie “Aktions-Tourette” :).
Ich habe manchmal Lust, Leuten, die auf ihr Handy gucken, ihr Handy aus der Hand zu schlagen. Zum Glück mache ich das nicht :D
Hallo Emanuel,
First, I am ever grateful to you for creating such a wonderful blog and such innovative learning techniques. I have studied German language as a major in university. However, Its my first to learn these “Hacks”.
Thank you for your kind reply & for making me a part of this genuine generosity that you and the rest of the German learning community offers (one year free membership). May these good deeds be everlasting and I on my behalf will make sure that your blog gains the popularity it deserves.
Most appreciated
Rihab
I’ve also seen “Knödel” as dumpling – is this just another word for dumpling or is it also somehow related to “Kloß”?
No, I think there’s a difference. I think, “Kloß” can be made from meat, while “Knödel” can’t be but I don’t like dumplings (of any kind) so I can’t really help with which is which :)
Schön! Aber ich verstehe nicht, wieso “Thomas macht Klettern Spaß” nicht “Thomas makes climbing fun” bedeutet? Könntest du, bitte, das erklären? :)
Gute Frage. Die allgemeine Formulierung ist so:
– Etwas (eine Sache) macht jemandem Spaß.
– Something is fun for someone.
Das “etwas” ist Klettern und die Person (someone) ist Thomas. Also:
– Klettern macht Thomas Spaß.
Und jetzt habe ich einfach die Wortstellung geändert.
– Thomas macht Klettern Spaß.
Das hat keinen Einfluß auf den Sinn.
“someone makes something fun”… diese Formulierung gibt es in Deutsch nicht so direkt.
Sag mir Bescheid, ob das hilft :)
I’m very grateful for the membes who payed a little more to help others to learn German, thank you German learning community!
Shout out to the German learning community who has sponsored me. Thanks a lot.
Very cool! Vielen Dank. One question–is the translation for “Maria findet, dass Thomas klammert” backwards? It says “Thomas finds that Maria is too clingy” but the German looks to me like Maria is finding Thomas too clingy.
Yes, they’re not speaking the same language when it comes to that topic ;)
BUt I guess I should actually change it back to normal. I wasn’t really thinking about how confusing that might be to a learner.
Oh what a wonderful article! Soooo much etymology :-) After the mentioned “Klammeraffe” I really want to play this old boardgame again:
Oh, I think I know that :). I don’t know the rules or anything but that image looks familiar.
Cool one!
Just a couple little notes…
“Heftklammern,” at least in American English, are just “staples” – I’ve never heard of a “stapler pin.” For “ausklammern,” I’m trying to think of a better idiom than just “exclude [from discussion]”; in AE, when you “table” something in a meeting, you’re postponing discussion on it, usually indefinitely, so that might fit in the example. (As I understand it, in BE “tabling” something means exactly the opposite, which I find fascinating.)
In the example with Maria’s clutch, you forgot to include “under her arm” in the English. :) Also, Thomas can’t pull *off* a pull-…. uh… -up. (Just a typo, but potentially irritierend.)
For “erklimmen,” “to scale” could fit. I don’t know if it’s exactly “epic,” but it does at least sound like managing to climb up something that’s hard to climb.
Curious about “bur” – that looks like it’s the older standard spelling, but I’d always spell it “burr.” Is “bur” still current in BE? Anybody?
That *gel- IE root pops up in English via Latin in the word stem “glom” – you see it in “conglomerate,” “agglomeration.” Not exactly everyday words, but you’ll also sometimes come across the slang “glom onto something,” which can mean “stick to” or “take, steal.”
And then there’s another one via Hebrew that I imagine must come from *gel- too, known in both English and German: golem, from Hebrew גולם meaning something like “unformed substance, raw material” – and of course, THE Golem was an animated not-quite-human clay figure. (Paul Wegener’s 1920 UFA film is pretty cool, by the way.)
And here I thought “glom onto something,” was a phrase my mother made up! She was always doing that.
That’s really interesting, connecting it to “golem”. Here’s what I found from Online Etymology Dictionary- golem (n.) “artificial man, automaton,” 1897, from Hebrew golem [Psalms cxxxix.16] “shapeless mass, embryo,” from galam “he wrapped up, folded.” So it’s still not clear if it came from the same source as the Latin root.
Thanks for all the corrections :).
As for “golem”… it is really compelling to connect it to the *gel-root but as far as I know, Hebrew is not related to the Indo-European languages. So this might be really just a coincidence.
And while we’re at uncertain connections… in an earlier draft, I had the word “gluts” as another member of the family. I actually even had it in my little ( )-image. I mean… a gluteus is a big lump of muscle and a butt does look like this ( ).
And I think I did read somewhere that it is related, because I usually don’t mention relations for which I am not able to find at least one reference. But I wasn’t able to dig it up.
“gluts” comes from Ancient Greek Glouteus (or similar) and meant “buttocks” but that’s where it stops.
So if someone knows anything about that, please share :)
Why’s everybody getting hung up on trivial details like “is this word actually from an Indo-European language”? Erbsenzähler, the lot of you…
Sure, it’s probably a coincidence, but there are a few little similarities in Hebrew to IE roots that make you wonder. There’s ארץ ‘eretz for “earth”/”Erde,” and מות mawet for “death” doesn’t seem crazily far off from the “mort-” root via Latin.
I don’t know any more than you do about the etymology of “gluteus,” but I choose to believe this word family includes butts.
XD… yeah, who is Science to tell us what’s related and what isn’t. You’re right. I’ll look it up in my gut next time ;)
Hi Emanuel
Thanks for another article. I’m able to read increasing amounts of German each time:-)
Just a couple of translations that could be improved slightly:
die Wäscheklammer – the clothes peg
die Heftklammer – the staple
Tschüss!
Hooray for your progress :). And thanks for the corrections!
“Clothes peg” must be regional, maybe British – “clothespin” (either one or two words) is the only term I’d use for it.
“Der Manager klammert die Kaffeeproblematik beim Meeting aus, um nicht wieder die Polizei rufen zu müssen.” Ich hätte gern die Kaffeeproblematik gesehen, die die Polizei beteiligt.
In dem Satz “Meine Tochter hat die Finger meiner Sohn in dem Türpfosten eingeklemmt.” wo steht SICH? Er hat die Finger nicht selbst eingeklemmt.
Dieses Wort Familie klingt mir komisch!
Danke sehr, Emanuel.
Die Diskussionen über Kaffee sind dort immer sehr erhitzt (heated) :).
In deinem Beispiel mit “einklemmen” brauchst du technisch gesehen kein “sich”
– Meine Tochter hat die Finger meines Sohnes in der Tür eingeklemmt.
(Türpfosten allein ist nicht genug zum “Einklemmen”. Man braucht “Tür” als Gesamtheit, also Pfosten und die eigentliche Tür)
Aber der Satz klingt ein bisschen so, als ob deine Tochter das mit Absicht gemacht hat.
Ich glaube man würde das dann genauer beschreiben. Aber vielleicht sagt man das auch, keine Ahnung.
Danke sehr! Ich schätze viel die Rückmeldung.
“Aber der Satz klingt ein bisschen so, als ob deine Tochter das mit Absicht gemacht hat.” Ha! Es klingt beide auch auf English. Man braucht Kontext. (Sie hat das nicht mit Absicht gemacht, aber sie wusste nicht, warum er schrie, und warum die Tür nicht schließen würde. Sie waren Teenager, und es gab keinen Schaden. Heute ist es lustig….) :-)