Thursday, 23 June 2016

fesche may never happen

Though we don’t reside in the deepest heart of stereotypical Bavaria (wir sind Franke danke) and try not to employee too many regionalisms, I found that I had encountered beforehand every one of these words and phrases—with the exceptions of “pfiat di”—an abbreviation of “behรผt dich Gott,” bye-bye from God be with thee, and fesch, meaning chic, appealing. I was not able to learn much more about the etymology of the Bavarian term (although it was a lyric in a song sung by Marlene Dietrich in 1930) but did make me think about fetch from Mean Girls, when one character is accused of trying to start a trend by making up slang. I wonder if fetch was not completely fabricated, after all. “Stop trying to make fetch happen; it’s not going to happen.” Check out the whole list from the Local, Germany’s English daily.