The word "Handy" for a mobile or cell phone

Actually yes, it is... for anyone with a brain

I like to spell it HÄNDY

Nope, go back to the roots: Handie...Hmm, or not. Sounds awful nevertheless. Handie-talkie-coochie-smoochie-woozie-woo.

When speaking English I have taken to calling my car a "zoomy". I wonder if it will catch on, or if it makes fuck all sense.

Good for you, would you like a cookie?

I dont use one. I tried when they first arrived but found that these little annoying telephones were not at all handy. Far more trouble than they were worth.

Handy is the stupidest name for a high tech piece of equipment.

Why?

No, anyone with a brain will know already and...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hell! Never mind the damned handy. I've just discovered that the word "beamer", which I've been using in both languages ever since I discovered their existence, is not an English word at all. This is really embarassing. What shall I do?

Call it a video projector, since that's the 'right' word for it in English. Although everyone I know -- British, American, Australian -- calls it a beamer!

nope, aussie i am, and call it a beamer? never have. its a projector at least. as to the handy word - picture this... a german traveller friend of mine had not long arrived in sydney before missplacing his wallet. he grabbed the attention of the nearest shopper with words to the equiv of 'can i borrow your handy, i've lost my purse?!'. he couldn't understand the blank look... so 'purse' it is!

Yeah, those evil Krauts. Well, since both of these inventions are from germans it seems logic then to name them in german, one would think so.
first television

" The origins of what would become today's television system can be traced back to the discovery of the photoconductivity of the element selenium by Willoughby Smith in 1873, and the invention of a scanning disk by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884.

The German student Paul Nipkow proposed and patented the first electromechanical television system in 1884. Nipkow's spinning disk design is credited with being the first television image rasterizer."

The telephone was already 15 years invented by Phillip Reis before even Graham Bell was known.

Damals unterrichtete Philipp Reis am bekannten Knaben-Institut Garnier in Friedrichsdorf
Sprachen und Naturwissenschaften für ein bescheidenes Gehalt und hatte daneben, besessen von der Idee, Sprache in die Ferne zu übertragen - einen Apparat, den er Telefon nannte, konstruiert.
http://www.friedrichsdorf.de/lebeninfriedr...ppreis_info.php
Seems as if Reis himself called it a telefon.

If you want to read about the Verdeutschungen (germinazation) of the language during the Reich, there are a bunch of links, just Google it
from : http://migs.concordia.ca/occpapers/n_german.html
In addition to the secret language employed by government officials, there were the numerous issues of Sprachregelung (language regulations). One part of them dealt with the "Germanization" of the language by replacing foreign words (Fremdw–rter) with German ones: e.g. Lichtbild instead of Photo, Fernsprecher instead of Telephon, Fernsehrohr instead of Teleskop.

Scientists used more Greek and Latin words, since international communication with others is paramount, and it sounds cool anyway.
Monolingual nationalists are the bane of globalization, should be herded into reservations so they can interbred and devolve into some sub-species. Probably what is happening in parts of Mid-western US anyway.

Let there be LIPS!

on the language thing - it's a living thing; handy will slowly move across the language barrier - I've seen it used by Germanophones with Dutch and French...

After reading some of the comments I am guilty of this. I have always said handy...I mean I live since 94 here and in germany was my first contact with a handy... but I do understand what you mean. My sister ALWAYS says to me, "what ya mean?" and so now I say 'phone'.

Can anybody tell me where I could find a list of these pseudo-English terms used by Germans? I know "Showmaster" for something similar to a talkshow host is one and "Sit-in" for a gathering of people protesting against a government action by sitting down in the street another.

How about "Handout" for some sheets of paper that you get at the end of a seminar, do the native speakers use that?

Go the whole hog - confuse the bejaysus out of everyone, regardless of where you are - Phönechen ...

Imagine all the mad dashes across town which film-makers would lose if they admitted the existence of mobile phones. Kudos to the makers of "Charmed" for doing just that - not for much else though.

"Overhead" is a nice word - not necessary to add "projector" or "transparency" in 99% of cases - if you say you'll need an overhead, unlikely to turn up and find a nice shiny new sheet of acetate lying on the desk at the front. Oh wait, that would be really bad - better safe than sorry then.

Colin XX

I don't have an exhaustive list but you can find some of them in the Wikipedia entry on Denglisch (scroll about half way down to see the list).


If you look them up in a dictionary or on Google, for example, you'll see that "showmaster" is a pseudo-Anglicism whereas "sit-in" and "handout" are legitimate English words, with the same meaning as the one you gave above (although "handout" has more than one meaning). That's the best advice I can give you, if you're not sure about a word then just look it up in an English-language dictionary.

I'm sure, we all know, but do we care? To name something after a completely irrelevant technical aspect of the way it works sounds really stupid. As for me, I don't care, wether my message is transmitted to the nearest base station by radio waves or to a honeycomb by busy buzzing bees, to a satellite in orbit around Mars or by funny rabbitts through an underground network. What matters is, that I can hold the beastly contraption in my hand and this is why I will keep on referring to it as a handy. Language is an organic thing. Foreign words, or those that sound foreign will forever come into use, regardless, if the original meaning (the handie-talkie story is quite convincing) has long been lost. I will not complain about the Russians calling a hairdresser perikmacher, although no German uses this presumably German word. So English speakers should not object to us silly Germans saying handy, beamer, handout or oldtimer. This is not English. They are just German words with an English sound. Use them, when you are talking German. If you prefer to call them rabbit-phones when speaking to English speakers, do so.
Chris

The word that describes what it is is 'Mobile' it is a phone you carry about with you. the other ones 'Cell' and 'Handy 'are meaningless.

Bzzzt. Wrong. In English, as I think has been said numerous times already, "cell" and "mobile" are abbreviations of "Cellular telephone" and "Mobile telephone". Both are equally meaningful. As for "Handy", it's a word used in the German language. As such any discussions regarding its validity in English are irrelevant. If one chooses to use it whilst speaking English then that's up to the individual.

Isn't this "logic" going to get very confusing as everything up to the size of a large melon would be called a "handy"...

That would be quite incorrect Chris. Why? 'cos we really did have a mobile phone in the UK called "The Rabbit Phone". It was as flawed as the Sinclair C5 but really did exist:

http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/1793

That would give rise to the expression "That'll come in double handy!"

Or triple...

Ah, yes, you're right. I see. Stupid I!

The rabbit was such a shite idea. You had reception points near shops - could take your phone with you from home - but you could only use it for OUTGOING calls, not incoming. Doh.

Do they not call it 'handy phone' in Japan as well? In this case it kind of makes sense.

Flawed as a means of communication yes. But it was an attempt to grab the right to the wavelengths.

I keep calling it cell phone :-)

I don't understand the whole discussion. In Germany this device is called "Handy". It comes from Hand (in der Hand halten). It is irrelevant whether English speakers like or dislike the word. When in Rome...
Also there are already too many English words in the contemporary German usage. I absolutely hate texts or advertisements that are in Denglish. It should either be in German or English but not be mixed.

Please don't be angry, it's only another forum discussion, believe me, there are a lot worse!

Aren't most phones held in the hand? I rather think - and sorry to say it - that the word is the English word 'Handy' meaning 'Convenient', which is exactly what a mobile phone is...

BTW I can understand your disapproval of the increasing influence of English in contemporary German usage.


Technically, this is the most correct description of all.

I find the easiest way is to use handy when speaking german, and mobile when speaking english, that way you dont confuse anyone, but i wouldnt want it adopted as an english word, people should just stick to the words they already have, otherwise whats the point in having different languages. Just adopt the words from the country your in when speaking to natives of that country, and the words your used to in your own.

errr...techinically as a part of the network the terms is ME!