2y ago

Languages without the letter U can't call it a U turn.

53 comments

In Germany we have the letter U but we call it by the real name "Kehrtwende"
- Just for context, the word Kehrtwende is not used often. Instead, the verb "wenden" is used the sense of "making a U-turn"
- Is that the real name for the letter U? damn
- The fuck did you just call me?
- What does that translate to?
  
  kehrt -> return
  wende -> turn
  
  Knowing the Germans, probably "extra long and bent letter I"
- Why is kehrtwende the real name? Doesn't it basically just mean "turn around"?
  
  Yes it does, why make it more complicated?
In Hebrew, it's a horseshoe turn.
- ...
  In countries without horses...
  
  A U-turn
We call it a 180.
As in 180 degrees turn.
- We call it something like 'half circle turn'.
  
  In France we call it a half turn
- Which language is that in?
  
  Dutch. But the variant we speak in Flanders (Vlaams).
  
  Yeah, infamousbelgian, which language is that in? /s
  Edits: How the hell do I mention a user in Lemmy?
The Romans must have called it a V-turn
- A five turn?
- How is this not the top comment??
You should see the the folks in Beijing make a 欲-turn.
- Who is we?
  
  The Jews!
In French it's called a pin turn.
- I imagine that would be a hairpin which takes the shape of a U. In routing there is a hairpin NAT which redirects traffic exiting back into the local network.
  
  In rally races in the US its also called a hairpin.
Even though the letter U is definitely existing in the vocabulary, in Italian it is called "elbow turn" (curva a gomito)!
- Italian.... “elbow turn”
  I'd be willing to bet that when they say elbow they mean the pasta.
  
  Thank you for making me discover elbow pasta! It deepens my conviction that everything in Italy is somehow related to pasta...
- How do they not get it confused with elbow pasta?
  
  Confusingly enough, in Italy I believe it is not quite a thing "elbow pasta". Personally I have never heard anyone refer to any kind of pasta as "gomiti", though Google showed me that they indeed exist. I have always heard the ones that looks like elbows in other names.
- Letters aren't part of vocabulary though?
My language doesn't has U, but we call it U turn anyway, even though we have a similar letter in our own language.
- Now that's odd.
In Chinese doing an u-turn can be called 掉头 or 调头, literal translation would be lose head (or front) or change head (front). For whatever reason apparently both can be used.
But the symbol still makes sense
You don't need an alphabet to design what may as well be modern day hieroglyphics.
The name U turn itself is dumb anyways (alongside shit like T-shirt, I kid you not I tought my english teacher was trolling us because I refused to believe at 12 that people in any part of the world use a '-' in a regular word they use everyday).

53 comments