Barbara and her Rhubarb Pie and....

September 5, 2016 10:54 AM

In German, you create new descriptive nouns by stringing other nouns together into longer and longer words. You don't need to speak German to understand this little story about Barbara and her rhubarb pie [2m9s]. I'm pretty sure you will enjoy it.
posted by hippybear (32 comments total)

That was the best German video I've seen. Barbarbar none.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:01 AM on September 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

Subtitled in English. My toddler is running around the house yelling "BARBARBARBARBARBAR", thank you for today's entertainment!
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 11:05 AM on September 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm right at that point between really wanting to pick up on German and not wanting to go anywhere near it.
posted by lmfsilva at 11:14 AM on September 5, 2016 [8 favorites]

My toddler is running around the house yelling "BARBARBARBARBARBAR"

How barbaric!
posted by jedicus at 11:16 AM on September 5, 2016

In a similar vein, from Dutch:
hottentottententententoonstelling
posted by farlukar at 11:36 AM on September 5, 2016

The car I drive at work has a "Doppelkupplungsautomatikgetriebe".
posted by mortimore at 11:38 AM on September 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

One of the same parts of my brain enjoys making long sticks of LEGO bricks, and also learning new German words.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:45 AM on September 5, 2016

But what happens when Barbara runs out of Rhubarb ?
posted by Pendragon at 11:51 AM on September 5, 2016

The barbarians will have to get apple pie to go with their beer. Not as linguistically satisfactory, but it'll do.
posted by farlukar at 11:56 AM on September 5, 2016

I think it's the barbarians' beard barber who has the beer.
posted by hippybear at 12:01 PM on September 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

It works in English too: Rhubarb Babara and her beer bar barbarian's beard barber's beer!
posted by monotreme at 12:01 PM on September 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Barbara doesn't have the beer bar, she has the rhubarb bar. The barbarians' beard barber beer is served at a bar run by Bärbel.
posted by hippybear at 12:03 PM on September 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

When the bar runs out of rhubarb then the barbarians will be barred from the bar, bah.
posted by fallingbadgers at 12:15 PM on September 5, 2016

English also makes new nouns by stringing other nouns (and noun phrases) together. This isn't that surprising, as English is also a Germanic language. For instance: power line repair technician union protest organizer is perfectly valid in English. Unlike the Germans, we write these compound nouns with spaces in them, but that's just a convention of our writing system and not a feature of the language per se.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 12:18 PM on September 5, 2016 [16 favorites]

That was hilarious but now my ToDoList has got acquiring the ingredients to bake a rhubarb pie at the top of it.

Martha Stewart recipe.
posted by bukvich at 12:18 PM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

How many barbarian beards could the barbarian's beard barber barber if the barbarian's beard barber imbibed Bärbel's beer?
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 12:20 PM on September 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Tried Peggy Sue
Tried Betty Lou
Tried Mary Lou
But I knew she wouldn't do
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:22 PM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Needs Rhababerbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel tag.
posted by duffell at 12:24 PM on September 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

I've tried to add this tag, but am not allowed. weeping and sadness.
posted by hippybear at 1:26 PM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thank you, Halloween Jack, I was going to mention the Beach Boys song myself, as well as California TV Furniture Store Pitchman (and Dr. Demento song inspiration) Ed Barbara.

Then there are cartoon-makers Hanna-Barbera, Barbershop Quartets and Babar the Elephant, but they probably don't translate to German well.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:14 PM on September 5, 2016

If the words are assembled outside of the dictionary, how do you know if they are valid in Scrabble?
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:35 PM on September 5, 2016

If it's longer than 8 letters, it's hard to play in Scrabble no matter what the language.

But here's a German Scrabble Dictionary [.txt.gz download] if you want to take a look....
posted by hippybear at 2:43 PM on September 5, 2016

This is fantastic!
posted by chasles at 2:52 PM on September 5, 2016

How has this never been posted here? It is wonderful, completely.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:21 PM on September 5, 2016

Actually, considering the German practice of combining words into longer words shown in the video, I would assume that a German language game of Scrabble would have a lot of cases of building words upon words to the limits of the game board.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:57 PM on September 5, 2016

With the length of words in German already pretty long, it is pretty difficult to add a suffix or another word part to an already played word on a Scrabble board. I actually have a German Scrabble set, and have played in that language several times (not as much as I have in English), and I'll tell you that English is a lot easier to play in because of short word suffixes and compounding much shorter words. Just the added "c" in the German word part "sch" when in English it would just be "sh" is a major increase in difficulty. Etc.
posted by hippybear at 4:10 PM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's the crux of the “gazillion eskimo words for snow” crap — stringing a bunch of words together for context.
posted by farlukar at 4:21 PM on September 5, 2016

Yes, it is, except for this is actually how things work in German, as opposed to the Eskimo thing which isn't true.

In any case, the Kate Bush song (featuring Stephen Fry) 50 Words For Snow is worth a listen because it's full of made up English words that describe different types of snow.
posted by hippybear at 4:27 PM on September 5, 2016

Rhababerbarbara Ann, Rhababerbarbara Ann, Rhababerbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel Aa-a-ann

(Welcome to the inside of my head now.)
posted by lollusc at 5:02 PM on September 5, 2016

It's the crux of the “gazillion eskimo words for snow” crap

Though I have to wonder, how many words does English have that mean water or wet?
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:13 AM on September 6, 2016

Needs more elephants
posted by merlynkline at 1:21 PM on September 7, 2016

Related.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:39 AM on September 10, 2016