As promised in the previous post, here's a quick little story about how I came up the name of the land, and a resulting conversation with a most adorable German gal.
We are into naming things. Some of our friends are too. While I recently named hubby's new tractor Betsy, hubby instantly said no, it's name is Ginny, after his late mother. (Love you, Ma!). If I get a small riding lawn mower, I will name that too. I have to meet it first though before I decided on what.
Every time we talked about the land, we'd refer to it as The Land. Kind of boring, doesn't invoke much about how that land feels to us, or anything about us. So we spent weeks kicking around names, and hubby even sent me several pages of potential names from the Internet. I wanted The Land to tell us what it wanted to be named, and I knew it needed to include some of our heritage. I am Native, Irish, English and German. Hubby is Slovak and Irish and I don't know what else.
I figured since we already call it The Land, maybe I could figure out a way to call it that, but in German and Slovak. A little Google search and listening to some words, and there it was! Das Zem. The Earth, or loosely, The Land. Me likey! Hubby likey! And so it was done.
Fast forward a couple of months to this past week and this adorable customer of ours comes in with her grown son. She's German, feisty, has a beautiful accent, and ice blue eyes that peg you where you stand. While I had her at the register ringing out, I asked if I could run a couple of words past her. I explained that we had recently purchased land and had wanted to name it, and I wanted to make sure that I was saying what I thought we were and not some cuss words, or craziness.
I said the words and she flared up. What? Why? What are those words and why do I want to name land?! She fires off at me. Her son is standing like a deer in headlights, probably willing me--obviously unsuccessfully--to shut the hell up. I explain to her why we wanted to name it, and that I am German and he is Slovak, etc. etc. etc. Anyone else in the vicinity has now stopped what they are doing and is listening with abated breath. I'm getting nervous.
This elderly German gal just can't understand what I'm saying or my reasoning for any of it. She asked if I was German, and I said yes and told her my maiden name. It was obviously said with a Midwest accent and not with a German accent, and once again she shook her head and couldn't understand it. She tried spelling it, and nope. Chances are, we are from a different area of Germany than she is.
Why don't I just name my land Aufsland? She's exasperated now. How I've managed such stupidity and complexity in something that seems like it could be so much simpler is kind of my name of the game in life. Aufsland, while still sounding beautiful (when she says it), reminds me too much of "Oof". And here's the meaning of that:
Oof: expressing discomfort, as from a sudden exertion or a blow to one's body.
Um. Yeah. No.
So her son then speaks, and he's got a strong SOUTHERN accent, which is then pointed out by my manager who is standing beside me. His eyes get even bigger and before he can say anything his mother blurts out her disapproval of that accent, that he's 100% German with that Southern accent, and says that he's living in Tennessee. She also points out that they lived in Tennessee when he was growing up, but in Germantown. I looked at him with wide eyes and apologized for opening this can of worms. He says it's okay, it's the second time that day that he's had to hear it from her.
Oops. Cough. So um, yeah, thanks for your time, have a great day! My beautiful slice of Das Zem in this crazy world means so much to us, even when nobody else understands its name. 💚
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