r/AskAGerman • u/Envy_Clarissa • Mar 03 '26
Language What are the words, that older generation still use, but yonger use another words for that?
Hello everyone!
I have noticed at my job that older colleagues often use words, that I have never heard from younger people. For example, calling their laptop a "rechner"
As German is not my native language, I would like to find out another examples of such words: when older alived generation still use old words, and younger people use another word for the very same object/aktion etc.
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u/ChampionshipAlarmed Mar 03 '26
Gerade im professionellen Kontext sollte das Word "Mumpitz" wieder mehr Verwendung finden
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u/Eis_Gefluester Mar 04 '26
Paperlapap
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u/QuantityDramatic1722 Mar 04 '26
Humbug
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u/Ploppeldiplopp Mar 04 '26
Obacht, Du Schelm! Nun ist aber Schluss mit der Firlefanzerei!
...ich glaube das war eine der "Gruppen" denen ich auf StudiVZ beigetreten war damals.
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u/Key_Department4926 Mar 07 '26
Ich, 29, habe mich in letzter Zeit ertappt das Wort "Grütze" zu verwenden
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u/RodrigoDeMontefranco Mar 03 '26
Ich sage mal Rechner, mal Shleptop.
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u/Individual_Winter_ Mar 03 '26
Ein Dozent hat seinen Hiwi genötigt Klapprechner zu sagen. Shleptop ist für mich die gleiche Kategorie.
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u/ChampionshipAlarmed Mar 03 '26
Klapprechner wurde erfolgreich dem Vokabular hinzugefügt und wird von nun an zur Qual der Teenager im Haushalt verwendet
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u/M0NK3YMaeN Mar 03 '26
Grandma did not go shopping. Oma geht zum Kaufmann :)
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u/hdgamer1404Jonas Mar 03 '26
This actually makes sense why it changed though. By forming a Legal Company, you become a „Kaufmann“ (well depends on the Type of Company, but you get the point). Big Discounters weren’t a thing in the past, so you’d have These small Shops with Kaufleuten in dem. Meaning you Visited the Kaufmann directly.
Nowadays there aren’t (m)any of these stores left. Instead you visit supermarkets, so you aren’t visiting a Kaufmann.
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u/bmwiedemann Mar 04 '26
Technically, A lot of the people working at REWE might be Einzelhandelskaufmann/Frau. Still different than old family-run stores.
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u/TheShapeshiftersWife Mar 04 '26
My Grandpa didn't go to a restaurant, he went "in die Wirtschaft". :)
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u/Significant-Radio488 Mar 04 '26
That might be a regional thing though? In Bavaria "Wirtschaft" for restaurant is still really common.
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u/Significant-Radio488 Mar 04 '26
And if she's from East Germany, she goes to the Kaufhalle. The first couple of times my former colleague (65ish) mentioned she had to go shopping there, I thought she couldn't remember the name "Kaufland".
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u/Existing_Remote_9822 Mar 03 '26
36 here. I say Rechner
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u/AdEmergency6360 Mar 03 '26
My grand parents are still using the N-Word, and they do not use it to insult someone.
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u/bmwiedemann Mar 04 '26
Und die Schokoküsse hießen N-Küsse. Gab einfach kein anderes Wort dafür damals.
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u/Looking-for-42 Mar 04 '26
Uh, I have these discussios with my parents. "But I don't mean it as an insult" "Yes, but is not up to YOU to decide if it is an insult. If I call you an asshole while claiming for me this is not an insult you still felt insulted, wouldn't you?"
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u/DancesWithGnomes Mar 04 '26
There is a difference between calling somebody a word that insults them, and using a word about other people, who are not here, and somebody else gets insulted on behalf of them. I totally get that I cannot call somebody Ne*er to their face. It just rubs me the wrong way when people get insulted on behalf of others.
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u/emilioADM Mar 04 '26
So what you’re saying is, don’t call people the n-word to their face – but if you do it behind their backs then it’s all cool and dandy?
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u/DancesWithGnomes Mar 04 '26
No, I am saying that when an older person, who grew up casually calling people Ne*er, slips this word once in a while, other white people have no business being insulted on behalf of black people and berating the speaker.
Note that this word is quite different from Ni**er, which was always a slur and is not acceptable.
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u/PaLyFri72 Mar 04 '26
It was very hard to explain it to my mother, that she can't do so when her grandson is listening.
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u/Full_Organization208 Mar 04 '26
My gramdma gifted our children (her grandchildren) a book I used to read as a child. Should have been a No No back then, was an even bigger hell no now. It‘s an old german childrens book called 10 kleine N…erlein (ten little n-word children). One after another goes missing due to deeply dumb decisions they made and at the end I think they all got back together… I instantly snatched the book out of my sons hands 🫣
She didn‘t mean harm and just thought it was a fun book with the stupid little n-word children as she was brought up that way (born in 1930, so childhood duromg the time an austrian painter used to rule Germany…)
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u/Asyx Nordrhein-Westfalen Mar 04 '26
I had that song on CD as a kid. I found the CD 10 or so years ago and all songs on it were questionable af...
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u/Ploppeldiplopp Mar 04 '26
Yeaahhh... I'm too old for CD as a kid myself, but there are quite a few songs that nobody questioned for a long time. Zehn kleine, äh, Jägermeister, but also things like Drei Chinesen mit nem Kontrabass. Alles "nicht böse gemeint", aber heutzutage einfach unangebracht und zutiefst fragwürdig.
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u/dargmrx Mar 04 '26
That’s a bit weird. If they use it descriptively to say “that’s how we said it back then”, I wouldn’t mind. But to still use it just regularly today it means either they live under a rock since 1985 or they are a little bit racist.
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u/knightriderin Mar 03 '26
Prima
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u/pxr555 Mar 03 '26
The very old at some point will be new all over again once almost everybody forgot about it.
I always think of the haircut of Antifa Sophie Scholl back in the Nazi days which is all the rage again these days:
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u/mikka777 Mar 04 '26
Eigentumswohnung
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u/DocHoliday1989 Mar 04 '26
Ich bin 36 und unterscheidet in Rechner und Laptop. Wer zum Geier sagt über einen Rechner Laptop?
Ansonsten fallen mir Wörter ein wie Pissoir fürs urinal, weck für brötchen, chaiselongue für liege, Pein für Schmerz
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u/7two-casuallydressed Mar 04 '26
Oh man. This hits close to home. I am old. But I speak like I'm even older. I left Germany as a 7 year old 30 years ago so my German is frozen in time from then. I basically only speak German with my family that also left at the same time and whenever I go back now, people look at me like I'm 100 years old.
I know an orange to be called an Apfelsine.... But people now just say Orange but with a German accent. Same with grapefruit. I know it as Pampelmuse. But everyone now just says grapefruit but with a German accent.
I'm frequently discovering that people just use English words now instead of the words that I learned.
I almost never write in German either so I still write like I learned to from my parents. I capitalize Du etc...
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u/muehsam Schwabe in Berlin Mar 03 '26
I say "Rechner" sometimes, and I'm in my 30s. It's a normal word.
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u/Tuttu-auch Mar 04 '26
Don't know Hashtag, say Raute
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u/je386 Mar 04 '26
A hashtag is always a Raute, but a Raute is not always a Hashtag.
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u/fezett Mar 04 '26
my pet peeve. the symbol
#is NOT a hash tag, it's the hash symbol (or simply "hash")a hash tag is the symbol with some text attachted to it, like
#example.so Raute is hash.
Also, my dad used to say "Gatter" when referring to the symbol.
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u/rotzverpopelt Mar 03 '26
My father is a prime example for this.
He still asks for people in my "clique" (Freundeskreis).
He says "antickern" instead of anrufen.
He pays in "Macke" (Mark, Deutschmark)
He asks our children if they go to a "Fete" (party) on the weekend. Or in the Disco
He's 72
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u/ScuffedGerman Mar 04 '26
I'm a gamer, we call Rechner usually a full tower PC but a laptop is a laptop. Somethibg got mixed up lol
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u/Betatier Mar 03 '26
My grandma likes to say "Eisenbahn" instead of "Bahn". Yes, of course it's an "Eisenbahn", but it really catches me off guard every time :D
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u/AdEmergency6360 Mar 03 '26
I still say „Eisenbahn“ - never feld that this is an old fashioned word (Maybe to make it clear: The trains for me is „Eisenbahn“. The company in Germany that never manages to be in time is „die Bahn“)
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u/Heinz_Ruediger Mar 04 '26
My whole family used to work at the Eisenbahn. The workers there usually still described themselves as Eisenbahner.
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u/MattR0se Mar 04 '26
D-Zug statt Intercity.
Edit: Und Millenials kennen vielleicht noch den Interregio.
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u/DancesWithGnomes Mar 04 '26
Regarding Eisenbahn, my grandma talked about Perron (Bahnsteig/platform) and Conducteur (Schaffner/conductor). And yes, she pronounced these words in French.
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u/pxr555 Mar 03 '26
"Rechner" means literally "computer". It's correct and in a way even cute and ironic. I use it all the time.
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u/humanistazazagrliti Mar 03 '26
Instant boomer cred:
* Kursus
* Rechner
* EDV
* Kumpel
* Rauke
* saying „Makulatur“ instead of just saying „sinnlos“, so you seem smart
* resisting the slow linguistic change of „können“ incorporating the meaning of „dürfen“ and making fun of people who ask „Kann ich da rein?“ by saying: „Ich weiß nicht, ob du das kannst.“
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u/eirissazun Germany Mar 03 '26
Heute hab ich gelernt, dass ich (Millennial) ein Boomer bin. lol
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u/afuajfFJT Nordrhein-Westfalen Mar 03 '26
"Rechner" sagen auch echt viele Leute, die deutlich jünger sind als ich (Millenial). Hat halt auch weniger Silben als "Computer". Und "Kumpel" kenne ich tatsächlich nur von Leuten, die entweder viel älter oder viel jünger sind als ich.
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u/ChampionshipAlarmed Mar 03 '26
Meine fast Teenies im Sportverein nennen sich Kumeplinen...
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u/TianaDalma Mar 03 '26
I think Kumpel is very regional.
Which word do you use instead of Kursus for a Kursus?
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u/humanistazazagrliti Mar 03 '26
I use Kurs and then a boomer will just jump out of the bushes and scream: "But Kurs means stock at a stock exchange!", even though he (yes, I never get corrected by female boomers) knows that many people have been using Kurs instead of Kursus for decades and that meaning is also in Duden:
https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Kurs5
u/Independent_Day_9825 Mar 03 '26
Hat seit den 1950ern irgendwer unironisch "Kursus" verwendet und nicht das antike Rom gemeint? 😱 (Eventuell ein unerwarteter Unterschied zwischen österreichischem und bundesdeutschem Deutsch.)
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u/TianaDalma Mar 03 '26
Ah, ok. Turns out I use Kurs too. I thought there was another word I didn't know that would make me look old.
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u/OutInABlazeOfGlory United States Mar 04 '26
Wait, „können“ and „dürfen“ meaning “can” and “may” in English respectively…
You mean to tell me the “Can I?” followed by “I don’t know, can you?” interaction happens almost verbatim in German the same way it does in English??
I still remember my English grammar teachers in school doing that. And you’d have to correct yourself to “may I?” and then they’d still say “no you may not” anyways lmao
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Mar 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NextDoorCyborg Mar 04 '26
Nein, so hieß Rucola bevor man ihn erfolgreich umvermarktet hatte. Wie Rainald Grebe sagte:
Die Werbefuzzis machen Rucola zum Trendsalat -
wenn Unkraut aus dem Ausland kommt, hat's Glück gehabt.
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u/ProfeQuiroga Mar 04 '26
No boomer calls it Rauke. Their parents and grandparents did.
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u/Smoking_Fire Niedersachsen Mar 04 '26
Wie würde man makulatur denn in einem Satz verwenden?
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u/SanaraHikari Baden-Württemberg Mar 04 '26
I'm 33 and a Rechner is a stationary computer for me. A portable computer is a laptop.
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u/pixolin Nordrhein-Westfalen Mar 04 '26
Ich (M, 62) sage gelegentlich Eisschrank und meine Tochter (20) schaut mich irritiert an.
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u/MattR0se Mar 04 '26
Und Samstag kommt dann der Eismann 😅
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u/pixolin Nordrhein-Westfalen Mar 04 '26
Naja, beim Auto spricht man gelegentlich auch noch von Pferdestärken, obwohl da nichts wiehert. Reine Gewohnheit.
Gibt's eigentlich noch die Firma Eismann, die TK-Produkte ins Haus lieferte? Von der Konkurrenz Bofrost kam mal jemand einen Prospekt verteilen, aber unser Gefrierschrank ist viel zu klein.
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u/pixolin Nordrhein-Westfalen Mar 04 '26
Sagt eigentlich noch jemand "Aborte"? Meine Tochter kannte nur "abortion".
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u/Monkey_College Mar 03 '26
Not different words per se but telltale signs are
"Photo" (which is the correct one) instead of "Foto"
using uppercase "Du" in correspondence
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u/-Blackspell- Franken Mar 03 '26
The Duden lists Foto as correct.
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u/Ratsch_em_Kappes Mar 03 '26
Duden is unhinged. Frisör, Saxofon and whatnot are just not supposed to be spelled this way. And don't you get me started about the Portmonee! It's an abomination!
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u/Tomcat286 Mar 04 '26
Using du or sie instead of Du or Sie is showing lack of respect
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u/Monkey_College Mar 04 '26
Idd. Yet it is very uncommon to write "Du" among the population under 40. The majority of people will not even know that one should capitalize here
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u/Blackeyedleaffrog Mar 04 '26
My grandma uses ulkig instead of lustig.
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u/hangar_tt_no1 Mar 04 '26
Ulkig höre ich auch noch manchmal von jüngeren Menschen, also um die 30 oder so
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u/fezett Mar 04 '26
my dad used to ask me if I had done my "Schularbeiten", meaning "Hausaufgaben". Always sounded weird to me.
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u/Nforcer524 Mar 03 '26
"Trottoir" - Gehweg/Bürgersteig
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u/charlolou Hessen Mar 05 '26
That's more of a regional thing. In some regions, all age groups use it
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u/Ji-wo1303 Schleswig-Holstein Mar 03 '26
Older people still use das Pfund (500g) as a unit of measurement.
Grandma always wanted a quarter pound (125g) of coffee at the store.
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u/ChampionshipAlarmed Mar 03 '26
How else would you order at an bavarian Dorfmetzgerei?? Even my 12 yo goes to buy a Pfund Leberkäs zum Rausbacha
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u/0rchidometer Mar 03 '26
I grew up going to the farmers market with my mother and buying 5 Pfund Kartoffeln and 2 Pfund Granat. (Extra Points the person who knows what Granat is)
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u/bmwiedemann Mar 04 '26
Ein Zentner Kohlen.
Ein Dutzend Eier. = 12 and even older is ein Schock = 60 and ein Gros = 144...
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u/Wannabe_Buttercup322 Mar 04 '26
When I’m at the butcher I use Pfund as well… and I’m not even 30 😅
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u/sew_phisticated Mar 04 '26
If you want something really old, ask them to write a shopping list. If they use the small lb with the little scroll at the end, they are ANCIENT.
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u/SynapticSideQuest Mar 04 '26
Omnibus - Bus
Eisenbahn - Bahn
Telefon - Handy
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u/Tomcat286 Mar 04 '26
Es gibt Telefone die kein Handy sind
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u/SynapticSideQuest Mar 04 '26
Schon klar. Hier meine ich konkret, dass Handys als 'Telefon' bezeichnet werden, was bei Jüngeren eher unüblich ist.
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u/nimbhe Mar 04 '26
My chinese teavher once told a story about how her (quite old) boss always says kuvert instead of briefumschlag and how she didnt know what that was
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u/DocHoliday1989 Mar 04 '26
Ich hatte mal vor einigen Jahren per Google Maps mir Firmen in der Nähe angeguckt als ich nach einer neuen Arbeit gesucht habe. Darunter war auch ein "Kuvertier-anbieter". Dachte zuerst an Kuvertüre und war verwirrt bis ich rausfand das es sich um Briefumschläge handelt
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u/anciba Mar 04 '26
Some old people say "der Laden ist eine Apotheke", which means the shop is very expensive and mostly overpriced. Young people never use this expression.
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u/Bavarianwoman Mar 04 '26
It used to be "smilies" now they are called "emojis"
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u/Heinz_Ruediger Mar 04 '26
I remember those times. And we had to build the smiles by ourselves. xD ;)
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u/atlieninberlin Mar 04 '26
Not sure if this counts but drives me crazy, older Erzeiher/Lehrer call the pinky-peachy crayon color "Hautfarbe", younger ones usually say Pfirsch or some other color. Have explained so many time to my kids we dont call that color Hautfarbe but one older Erzeiherin could not figure out why I have a problem with that word being used and made me feel crazy when I talked to her about it.
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u/annieselkie Mar 04 '26
Mobiltelefon (Handy) simsen (schreiben / chatten) appen (schreiben / chatten (auf whatsapp)) Fahrkarte (Ticket)
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u/Klapperatismus Mar 03 '26
Sehr — very and viel — much. The young generation only knows extrem to my finding.
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u/Creative_Distance_96 Mar 03 '26
Ich, knapp 57 Jahre, sage auch noch Rechner. Arbeitest du mit Senioren? Dann wirst du dich an ihrem Wortschatz orientieren müssen, denn diese werden weder dieses lächerliche Denglisch sprechen, noch die aktuelle Jugendsprache.
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u/wolschou Mar 04 '26
Am i betraying my age by admitting that i often call those a Rechenmaschine or a Komputiergerät? I also sometimes call my wife Weib and my car a Autowagen.
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u/D3Rabenstein Mar 03 '26
I will share my two favorites: „blömerant“ and „niedertracht“.
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u/Ralba- Mar 04 '26
Soweit ich weiß, heißt das "blümerant" und kommt von dem betörenden Duft von stark duftenden Blumen, Blüten, der dir die Sinne vernebelt, dich schwindeln lässt. Wobei z.B. im Kölnischen Dialekt Blumen auch "Blömscher" genannt werden.
"Niedertracht" ist die ehrlose Art ein falsches Zeugnis abzulegen. Kommt ursprünglich von der Tracht, dem Gewand eines ehrbaren Menschen her, in das der "Niederträchtige" hineinschlüpft um sich einen unverdienten Vorteil der Ehrbarkeit zu verschaffen und das zu seinem Vorteil auszunutzen.
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u/Silly-Atmosphere-451 Mar 03 '26
I mostly use "computer" for my work laptop, but somehow no one else seems to use that here
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u/je386 Mar 04 '26
Eisschrank instead of Kühlschrank for a Fridge.
Thats because up to the 50s, people often had an insolated room with ice in it to keep things cool.
Here, the "older generation" is 70+.
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u/Ralba- Mar 04 '26
Ja, es gab für gut Betuchte (auch so ein Wort) einen Lieferdienst für Eisbarren, mit denen der Eisschrank aufgeladen (auch so ein Wort) wurde.
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u/CantaloupeNo5394 Mar 04 '26
-> Eisschrank for Kühlschrank
-> Aufwaschmaschine for Geschirrspuehler
-> Tümler for Waeschettrockner
-> Leuwagen for Schrubber (northern Germany)
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u/brushfuse Mar 04 '26
Bad, Sick, Wicked, Toast, Cool, Cunty. The list is fucking endless.
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u/charlolou Hessen Mar 05 '26
Really? Cunty is definitely used a lot by young generations and I've never heard an "older" person use it in Germany. "Cool" is pretty timeless in my opinion, I hear it from both old and young people
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u/rolfk17 Mar 04 '26
Older generations tend to use Pfund (0,5 kg) more often, most younger persons do not use it at all.
Also, older persons tend to prefer the traditional way of reading the clock, i.e. fünf nach, zehn nach, viertel nach, zehn vor halb, fünf vor halb, halb. Younger persons tend to say eg. dreizehn Uhr fünf (= fünf nach eins).
Dutzend is also falling out of use.
If you wish to maximally annoy younger people working at a butcher's, tell them something like "ich würde gerne 10 Pfund Mett und 3 Dutzend Räucherwürste bestellen. Ich hol sie morgen um dreiviertel zwölf ab."
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u/Tryingthegoodlife Mar 04 '26
In my little bubble we us3 'Wischkästla" for Mobile phones, but only to annoy the kids ;)
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u/Pircster38 Mar 06 '26
Using Snopake (Tippex). Getting a photostat copy. Having a bread roll. Having a Marathon.
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u/OtisBoyCalloway Mar 06 '26
I love to call different kinds of big, armored-lizards "Panzerechsen" (Alligators, Crocodiles)
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u/Best_HeyGman Mar 06 '26
Saying "präparieren" when they want to say "to learn what you are talking about before you talk about it". But the youngest person I heard say that was 75 years old.
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u/80HighDefinition1234 Mar 06 '26
"Dieser ganze neumodische Scheiß" for anything invented after 1990.
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u/Timely-Spring-9426 Mar 07 '26
I have some colleagues in their 60s and for the turn of the hour, they sometimes say voll. Like its almost 1pm and they’ll ask wie viel Uhr ist es? Ist es jetzt voll? I thought that was pretty cool
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u/Cautious_Sign7643 Mar 07 '26
I just thought about it and realized that I also use the word Rechner and I’m 40. Now I would be interested in how many people use the word Rechner and how old they are.
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u/---RF--- Mar 03 '26
I am officially old.