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Re: Need German equivalent of "crank"
Posted:
Nov 27, 2006 1:02 PM
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On Mon, 27 Nov 2006, Dave Seaman wrote:
> I'm not a native speaker of German, but since no good terms have been
> offered yet, I'll mention that my dictionary gives
>
> crank -> verschrobener Mensch,
okay but clumsy
> he is a crank -> er hat einen Sparren,
I never heard it before but it seems to exist. As in all languages, there
are zillions of ways to ...
> suggest that a crank is someone with a screw loose.
Even the more or less literal translation "bei dem ist eine Schraube
locker" would work. But all these, including the direct "der spinnt", just
imply some malfunction of the brain. A "Spinner", however, has a working
brain producing lots of ideas - weird ones -, which would not work without
a fair amount of intelligence, albeit non-standard.
--
Helmut Richter
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