The meaning of Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

The German word Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz has been in the news. How can German have such a long word as this? The answer of course is that German compounds nouns indefinitely, but even so, what is going on here?

Rind means a cow or bull, like cattle but it is countable. The plural Rinder is cattle in the plural. The German name Rinderpest has been taken into English for a viral disease of cattle (Wikipedia).

Fleisch means meat or flesh. It is a cognate of the English flesh.

Etikettierung means labelling. Etikette is a label, borrowed from French étiquette. German makes verbs from French words by adding -ieren to correspond to French -er and -ung is the same as English -ing.

The s has no semantic function. It just facilitates the pronunciation.

Überwachung means monitoring but its meaning is clear in English: über means over and Wache means watch so it is a calque of native English oversee and the equivalent word of Latin origin supervise.

Again, the s has no semantic function.

Aufgabe is a task or function. Its literal English equivalent would be up-give. Aufgaben is the plural form.

Übertragung means delegation here. The verb is übertragen and again the -ung is the same as English -ing. Über is over and tragen means carry (cf English drag). There is no native English word overdrag but Latin has given us transfer, which is a calque of übertragen. There are a surprisingly large number of German calques of Latin words.

Gesetz is law. The root -setz is from setzen meaning sit. The law is something that has been established firmly in its place. Ge- is a prefix with no precise meaning.

So, it is a law for the transfer of functions for overseeing labelling of flesh from cattle or as the BBC translates it, law delegating beef label monitoring.

In the word above I use ü twice. For reasons best known to itself the BBC has (my emphasis):

Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz.

As I have mentioned, it is always possible to use an e following a vowel instead of an umlaut but it is never done (except in a few proper names including Goethe) when a proper umlaut symbol is available. And one can surely suppose that the BBC does have access to such things.

This is the sort of thing that everyone learning German comes across fairly early. When I was at school I learnt about the Rheinmaindampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsuniformmütze.

Rheinmain – two rivers, Rhine and Main.

Dampf – steam (English damp).

Schiff – ship.

Fahrt – journey (not what many people immediately assume), related to English fare. Note the triple f in Schifffahrt.

Geselle – workman. -schaft – an abstract noun ending as English -ship e.g. friendship. Gesellschaft is society or a company in the business sense.

Kapitän – captain.

Uniform – uniform.

Mütze – cap.

For people who know German such words are no problem because the elements, which are all standard words, stand out and their compound meaning is obvious. It is as if English had the Isleofmansteampacketcompanyscaptainsuniformcap.

Changing the subject slightly, but still with German, I remember another silly thing I learnt at school:

Zwei Männer, die vor einem Schokoladenladen Laden laden, laden Ladenmädchen zum Tanz ein.

Or in English:

Two men who are loading shutters in front of a chocolate shop invite shop girls to the dance.

And who says Germans don’t have a sense of humour?

Comments

[Alan Booth]

I seen to remember Les Woodhall's version being: Rheinmaindampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsuniform(s)knopfwappen

- bit then, were either of them ever real?

[Peter Harvey]

I was speaking from memory and I am sure it was invented either way. But the Rheinmaindampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft may have been real.