Re: Funny Words (don't show this email to your polyglot kids)

Douglas Koller, Latin & French wrote:
> Christian schrieb:
>
>> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jake X <starvingpoet@R...> wrote:
>>
>>>  The following is an innocent German sentence which sounds outrageous
>>
>> to an
>>
>>>  English-speakers ears:
>>>
>>>  Meine dicke Schlange wacht auf.
>>>
>>>  For some reason, everyone I know who is immature enough to get it
>>> gets a
>>>  laugh.  ;)
>>
>>
>> I don't get it.  Anybody care to explain?
>>
>> (I get the "dick" part, but not the phrasal meaning...)
>
>
> "Schlong" is also slang for "penis" (via Yiddish from the German, you
> guessed it, "snake"). I'd guess "wacht auf" sounds to the uninitiated
> like "wacked off", a colloquial term for male masturbation. I don't
> quite understand the entire jokey meaning of the sentence in toto.
> "Dick" and "schlong" together seems a bit like overkill, unless we're
> meant to understand "dick" as what it means in German, "thick".
I don't think it's supposed to make sense as a rude sentence in English,
just that it seems to consist entirely of crude terms.