Not guilty on this train

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Wenn sounds a bit like when, but doesn't really mean "when" in German; it usually means "if". Wer sounds a bit like where, but it doesn't mean "where", it means "who". Sechs sounds like sex but doesn't mean "sex". Gift looks like gift but means "poison". Nothing is easy, even when dealing with languages as closely related as English and German (the curse of Babel really was a serious curse). I was reflecting on such matters yesterday as I waited to begin my journey on a fast train from Salzburg to Munich. How easy and natural it would be to make the wrong assumption about, for example, the meaning of the adjective gültig, which I had seen on my tickets and accompanying documents. And as if on cue, I suddenly heard the beautifully-spoken announcer tell us in English over the train's PA system that tickets of a certain category "are not guilty on this train."

Gültig means "valid", of course; it doesn't mean "guilty". Nobody seemed to do a double-take except me; I was probably the only linguist on the train. I wonder how many more announcers are making the same mistake over and over again, every day, out there on the German railway system.



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