Strange and funny words

[Swatopluk]

This is aimed in particular at the non-English speaking part sof our community but not limited to it.

Languages contain words that seem inherently funny or strange. They may express an idiom and are thus not immediately understood by 'outsiders' even, if they know the individual parts. They may also conserve an obsolete meaning or an element no longer in common use (legal terms are often this).

Come up with examples (including an explanation)!

I will start with some

Himmelfahrtskommando
suicide mission
lit: ascension command, going-to-heaven mission
It seems to be assumed that this kind of job leads upwards. The equivalent Höllenfahrt (journey to hell) exists but only means that the trip itself is hellish not that the participant ends up dead.

Ehrabschneidung, Ehrabschneider, ehrabschneiderisch (aka Verunglimpfung, verunglimpfend)
calumny, calumniator, slanderous/libelous
lit: honour-off-cutting/er
This is a legal term rarely used in common language, while verunglimpft (slandered) still is. The latter contains the root word Glimpf combined with 2 prefixes (a rarity). The only other context where Glimpf occurs is glimpflich (getting off lightly). Glimpf seems to be obsolete for several centuries already and once seems to have been a word for a position of authority.

Hexenschuß (icelandic: þursabit)
lumbago
lit: witch shot (Icelandic: bite by a giant)
Obviously it was assumed that this painful phenomenon was the work of an evil entity, either a witch shooting an arrow (or something similar) at you or a þurs* sneaking up at you and taking a bite.

*today the meaning has been reduced to 'giant', originally it meant most malevolent (supernatural) forces independent of size. Draugr made a similar shift from zombie to ghost (Scandinavians did not believe in immaterial monsters, they had to have a solid body).

[Griffin NoName]

My mind is not working too well, but I can think of a phrase that means the opposite to what it says (which I think is very common in English) - although to an extent the opposed meaning is given by tone of voice.

eg. Yeah, right.

which means not, never, not at all, not in a million years............. you get the picture.

[The Meromorph]

Schnabelfuhrer

[Swatopluk]

Could you please also give a (non-madeup) definition and origin.
That one looks suspiciously like missing an Umlaut (ü). This would turn it into a technically valid German word (that could be tranlsated as 'beak leader') but that is unknown to me.

Edit: googling it (and the possible variants) just yields 10 hits, all of them either a misspelling or mistranscription of '...Schnabel führet' (carries <in its> beak)

[The Meromorph]

Could you please also give a (non-madeup) definition and origin.
That one looks suspiciously like missing an Umlaut (ü). This would turn it into a technically valid German word (that could be tranlsated as 'beak leader') but that is unknown to me.

Edit: googling it (and the possible variants) just yields 10 hits, all of them either a misspelling or mistranscription of '...Schnabel führet' (carries <in its> beak)

Sorry, apparently my memory of German vocabulary is somewhat unreliable.  

Try Der Schneckenführer  - The driver at the front of a long line of impatient traffic.  

[Swatopluk]

That makes more sense, although the more commonly used term is Arschloch
(old joke. such a line is known as a Schlange (snake). The question is: What is the difference between a 'car snake' and a real snake? The position of the a##h#le)

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Icelandic: Kviðmágur (noun)
Guys (or girls), who have slept with the same person. Literally it means "abdomen-brother-in-law".

The German term Lochschwager (lit.: 'hole-brother-in-law') means  the same (although it only refers to men naturally).

[Griffin NoName]

Try Der Schneckenführer  - The driver at the front of a long line of impatient traffic.  

On my way to my hospital appt. this week I saw a really long queue of stationary traffic, a big traffic jam. At the front, with a completely clear road in front of him, was a car just stopped at the front of the queue with the driver using a laptop balanced on the steering wheel. It was probably a good thing that the cars in the queue did not know the cause of the traffic jam or he might have become a dead man. Bizarre.