Re: fingers

Hello!

On 6/24/05, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

[snip snip]

> German has special *compound* words for the individual fingers.  Sure
> you don't *need* names for them.  German uses (number in piano
> enumeration):
>
>         fingers         toes
> generic: Finger          Zeh
> 1:       Daumen          großer Zeh / großer Onkel (may be child language)
> 2:       Zeigefinger     -    (by analogy, 'Zeigezeh', but only as a joke)
> 3:       Mittelfinger    mittlerer Zeh
> 4:       Ringfinger      -
> 5:       kleiner Finger  kleiner Zeh
For the 2nd to 4th toes, I use _Zeigezeh_, _Mittelzeh_, and _Ringzeh_.
But only jokingly, like you wrote. Of course I don't use my second toe
for pointing at things (unlike my second finger), or my fourth toe for
wearing rings. ;-)

I've seen _großer Onkel_ used in a young adults' novel, so it's
presumably not child language; but I'd say it's (at least) somewhat
more colloquial than _großer Zeh_. Then again, maybe _großer Onkel_
only sounds nonstandard to me because no one I know uses that term...

Regards,
Julia

--
   Julia Simon (Schnecki) -- Sprachen-Freak vom Dienst
_@"  schnecki AT iki DOT fi / helicula AT gmail DOT com  "@_
si hortum in bybliotheca habes, deerit nihil
                                        (M. Tullius Cicero)

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