Bescheidenheit ist eine Zier, doch weiter kommt man ohne ihr.
Modesty is an ornament, but you get further without it. The first half is the old virtue. The second half is the joke. It is also bad grammar, since ohne takes the accusative and correct German would be ohne sie. The error is kept for the rhyme, and it marks the second half as something no one quite says in earnest.
humor
Sweeping Week
In Swabia, the shared areas of an apartment building are cleaned in turn. This is the Kehrwoche, the sweeping week. Some buildings still have a sign with the word Kehrwoche in bold print. It hangs on the door of the tenant whose turn it is. The custom was once also backed by decrees. In 1492, Duke Eberhard ordered for Stuttgart: Damit die Stadt rein erhalten wird, soll jeder seinen Mist alle Wochen hinausführen. So that the town is kept clean, everyone shall carry out his dung every week. Stuttgart abolished the duty to sweep every week on December 17, 1988. Since then, sidewalks only have to be cleaned when they are dirty.
Claims Department M to Z
The comedy series Stromberg ran on ProSieben from 2004 to 2012. Most of it takes place in the claims department Schadensregulierung M–Z, which Bernd Stromberg runs. Claims from A to L belong to another department, Schadensregulierung A–L. Its head, Sinan Turçulu, competes with Stromberg for the management of the whole department.
The Crooked Picture
The episode Loriot II, broadcast by Radio Bremen on 18 October 1976, included the sketch Zimmerverwüstung, room devastation. An attempt to straighten a crooked picture ends in chaos. Loriot himself was known for working with geradezu „preußischer“ Akribie und unermüdlichem Fleiß, almost “Prussian” meticulousness and tireless diligence. He is said to have worked on weekends and holidays too.
The specialist idiot
A word for someone with deep command of a narrow field and no grasp of anything beyond it.
It is used with contempt, and it is reserved for the genuinely expert. You cannot be a Fachidiot without first being a Fachmann.
A culture that needs a word for the excess of a virtue has thought hard about the virtue.
“What are you thinking about?”
A comment on YouTube: “They are obviously Deep in Thought.”
Comic Con
One way that Americans move quickly from small to big talk is holding events centered around a common theme. These themes can be anything from the Information in Engineering Conference to MerCon (a mermaid-themed conference). At these conferences, it’s customary for people to only use a little small talk, then quickly segue into big talk based on the conference theme.
One of the best known examples of one of these events is Comic Con.
The first Comic Con was held in San Diego in 1970, when a group of comic and science fiction fans decided to showcase some of their favorite comic books and other forms of popular art.
The one day event was such a large success, attracting about 100 people, that its founders decided to throw a three day convention later that year (which attracted over 300 people).
Over the decades, Comic Cons have become so popular that they can be found all over the world, and some of the bigger events can have more than 200,000 people in attendance.
“No problem“
Cultures which work closely together, at some point, come up with insider jokes about each other. An insider joke is one which just about everyone in the one culture immediately understands. Hopefully, the spirit of these jokes is friendly and good-natured. The Americans have theirs about the Germans. And the Germans have theirs about the Americans.
“No problem” isn’t even a joke, it’s a phrase. More is not necessary, for every German who has experience working with Americans knows what another German means when they speak it: That Americans are often quite naive about a problem, about its seriousness, impact, complexity (from the German perspective).
So when Americans substitute the term ‘opportunity’ for the word ‘problem’, Germans can become a bit nervous. For many problems offer little to no opportunities. They are simply problems. And they need to be dealt with.
“criticism my way”
“I like criticism, but it must be my way.” Mark Twain in his Autobiography
“I don’t mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don’t tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage.” Mark Twain, 1879
Serviceability is reliability
Reliability in the U.S. also means serviceability. No product is perfect. Service can make up for it. And service is based on a product’s serviceability. After sales comes service. Should be fast, easy and profitable.
From Ford’s Model T which came with a tool box, all the way to today’s call centers responding 24/7 via 1-800 numbers, to the service trucks on the road, Americans tolerate suboptimal reliability if their concerns are listened to and acted upon.
But wait. Earning profits on a product’s imperfection? The German engineer winces at this. Products should work as developed. The German consumer winces at this. Products should work as promised.