German Advertising Campaigns

I was just sitting, gazing out the window, trying to stir something up within me, proving to myself that, hey, I am alive, when I saw, across the street a sign for the Douglas store. Douglas is a store here in Germany that sells perfumes of all kinds. They had a bit of a blunder a couple of years back when they first came out with their new ad slogan.

Whereas in the late 80s and early 90s, the “in” thing for every successful ad campaign in Europe was dependant upon some kind of very short, quippy ad campaign using, at least partially, some kind of French text, the late 90s to the present has required all really great ads to be given that international flair by writing them in English. This poses a slight problem, in that there are some ads out there that simply would not make it past the chopping block of an ad agency in America. But, ads that may theoretically send the wrong message in an English-speaking country do not pose such a threat here in Germany. Instead, here, the ad maker, one assumes, simply hopes that the public will, at the very least, be able to understand the ad in English, or some semblance thereof, without having to worry about some kind of contextual underpinning. (This leads to bathroom air fresheners called “Rentokill”, a giant street-cleaning vacuum called the “Glutton”, “ProLife” vitamins, and motorcycles lovingly dubbed “Motards.”)

What is funny, though, is what happened to poor Douglas. In this case, the opposite of what can normally happen (that someone who speaks English as their native tongue sees the ad and bursts out laughing) happened. Unfortunately for Douglas, many Germans have learned English in some class many years ago, or, better yet, may be a bit older and have never had a real course of some kind.

So, when Douglas came up with their ad: “Douglas. Come in and find out”, many understood, with little trouble, the first part, that one should come in to their nearest Douglas store. But, “find out”, when translated directly into German, means something more like “find your way out.” You can imagine how put out many Germans were to see the sign to their neighborhood Douglas store that said “Douglas, come in and find your way out.” How rude.

Ad astra for hope

Ad astra for hope


Likened to radiant gems
the sky for no hand to touch
A dream seen in waking
The azure hue summons me.
But how can it be
that on a sullen, brow-beaten night
I can lift my head, surprised
in that radiance of the noonday sun?

A gaze skyward from the still waters
sees not the bright moon in reflects completion
but the blue sun—
that moon, so worshipped on the pond crust is suddenly the noonday star on my waking

One image terrestrial
and one image far above.
This now-blue sun and its likeness just after a dream

It is what I see when I look into your eyes—
a reflection from the sky earthbound for me.

Racism in Germany

Little by little the word “Neger” is being fazed out in Germany, but, many people still feel free to use it. Something tells me fewer people would be apt to use it if there were any black people living here, but anyway... “Neger” is a word that most Germans will tell you cannot be translated as “nigger” because it does not have the same cultural context as our word in English. Yet, they would never call a black man a “Neger" to his face, and still say the phrase “Hey, I am not your nigger.” when asked to do something as a favor.

Race and ideas of what racism here in Germany are understandably behind the times in that there have traditionally been no other large groups of races other than white. Ironically, the only other dominant culture here is that of the guest workers invited in the sixties would be more than willing to describe their German “hosts” as being prejudice against them.

Every culture has racism. The French hate the Moroccans. The Germans hate the Turkish. The Italians hate the Albanians. Everyone hates the minority. It’s just that way—especially if the minority does not adequately conform to the majority’s standard. One of the most backhanded compliments that a white man can give is to tell his black friend that he doesn’t really think of him as black because he speaks clearly, is well-educated, etc. Whereas the white saying such a thing finds it to be a compliment telling his black friend that he is so great, he’s practically white, the black man is insulted at not being seen as the individual that he is. In the end, it is just condescending.

Even more condescending, though, is to have to come to Europe and have Europeans say that there is no racism here, at least not like the racism apparent in America. Maybe it is true that a black man can find, traditionally, a more accepting home in France than Alabama. But to tell me, an American that has overcome many of his own racist impeti that a country that condescends so badly as to not even use the word “immigrant” but, rather, guest worker (implying that they are the hired help, but will some day be asked to go back from whence they came) when referring to people who have resettled here is unbelievable.

Synonyms in German

The Germans love to tell Americans here that there are many more German words than English words--that we have a fewer number of words in English, but that these words can mean several different things (synonyms.) Sometimes I find this idea funny because, how does one determine the number of words a language has or does not have, by the thickness of the dictionaries? How absurd. Besides, German has its share of synonyms, and they tend to be confusing...

The word “vorstellen” for example, means “to imagine”. Ok, no problem. But, the noun for vorstellen is “Vorstellung”. Too bad, though, that it also means performance. How you say that the performance was very imaginative must be hard.

And, German, being the language and culture of some of the people who are the most obsessed about exotic cultures of the world, also happens to be one of the most culturally insensitive. The word for “dwarf” or “gnome” in German is “Zwerg.” A garden gnome, for example, is a Gartenzwerg. Well, the word for “midget” is also “Zwerg” in German. So, it doesn’t matter if a little person is a midget or a dwarf, they are a dwarf. What’s worse, they are really also “gnomes”, since the word for Gnomes is also "Zwerg."