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Comment by lqet | Hacker News Reader

As a German, I just realized that my intuitive understanding of the (seemingly English) word "glitch" seems to be far better than that of native English speakers, because the Yiddisch word "glitshn" comes from German "glitschen", which comes from "gleiten" - to slide, slip. So to me, it always meant exactly that: the program slipped and fell.

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French has a related word with the same meaning, "glisser". Both the German and the French term appear to come from the same original word. The French word "glacier" and the English word "glide" are also derived from it.

As is the German "Gletscher" (glacier).

I used to see a Metrobus on the Washington, DC, streets, with an advertisement from the German government and listing a lot of German words in common American use. My impression is that most of them made their way into use via Yiddish.

Something like a quarter of English words are Germanic in origin, but mostly not modern German. Many of the identifiably German words in English are more recent inventions (eg kindergarten) or yeah, Yiddish.

"And" is Germanic, but we don't think about that.

I'd love to import the word 'gitch' into German (like the word 'cringe' has been incorporated into youth slang), but it doesn't work because there already exists 'glitsch(ig)' - a close but yet very different word.

I especially like the phrase "someone is glitching out". I think this originated in scifi (think a bot), but you can use it to describe mental problems or just wierd behavior. It's impossible to use in German: "Jemand glitsht" - wait, why are they slippery?

I wonder if he picked it up from the German scientists working for NASA

I doubt those particular scientists were big on Yiddish :/

It's possible! Adolf Galland (Luftwaffe fighter ace) used to greet pilots with "Hals- und Beinbruch", the equivalent of "break a leg", which descends from the Hebrew -> Yiddish blessing "hatslokhe u brokhe".

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