Volkswagen Originalteil | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen Originalteil

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105 pointsCaptainZapp92 comments

Contains a typical spelling mistake you find suprisingly often in English text when using German words.

Swapping 'ie' to 'ei'. In this case 'Weiner' (wrong, someone who is crying) instead of 'Wiener' (correct, a type of sausage). One I've seen the other day is 'Kreigsmarine' instead of 'Kriegsmarine'.

Anyone knows why this happens?

A German speaker would pronounce the letter 'i' as an English speaker would pronounce 'e'.

Many German words contain an "elongated i" which is written as 'ie', but still sounds like 'e' in English, just a little drawn out and more pronounced.

In contrast, English has words like 'weird' which has an 'ei' construct in it but a pronunciation somewhat similar to what 'i' would sound like in German. Funny enough, in German 'ei' would be read like an English speaker would pronounce the letter 'i'.

So with the pronunciations more or less swapped, I guess, for an English speaker who heard the pronunciation of words like "Wiener", the spelling of the 'i' before the 'e' might feel counterintuitive, and they might, intentionally or not, "correct" it while typing.

> Anyone knows why this happens?

Because ie is pronounced aye in English, and eeeee in German.

And ei is pronounced eeeee in English, and aye in German.

> And ei is pronounced eeeee in English

No it's not. English spelling is irregular enough that I'm sure something is pronounced that way, but all the examples I can think of are either like "d(ay)" ("dei", "eight", "weigh", "veil"), like "b(e i)t" ("reiterate", "deity", "being", "weird", "deceit"), like "(I)" ("either", "neither", "height"), like "p(i)n" ("foreign", "sovereign"), or like "wh(e)re" ("their", "heir").

Edit: "stein"/"skein" maybe? I'm not sure if those should be like "st(ee)r" or "st(ai)n".

Edit: "seize", so there is in fact something that's pronounced that way.

> Because ie is pronounced aye in English

Neither is that: like "b(ee)": "wield", "thief", like "wh(y e)lk": "science", like "s(ee e)lk": "sapient", "salient", "orient", "sierra", "siesta". Actually, I can't think of any cases where "ie" is pronounced like "aye"(/"d(ay)"), either.

> I can't think of any cases

Just going through the alphabet:

die, lie, pie, tie, vie

science, cried, denied, diet, quiet, electrified, fried, justified, qualified, relied, satisfied, society, terrified, variety

> die, lie, pie, tie, vie

Those are all pronounced like "dye", not "day"/"aye".

> science, diet, quiet, ...

That has a "eh" (like "bet") between the "I" and the "n".

> cried, denied, ...

Again, that's "dye", not "day"/"aye".

(Also I wasn't counting contractions of words ending in "-y" + a suffix, since that seemed clearly unrelated to the German loanword process, but that's more of YMMV thing.)

Edit: wait, you were pronouncing "aye" like "I", weren't you? I assumed not since it makes more sense to use, well, "I" for that. Or even "eye". Bloody accents, and bloody six monophthongs and two offglides packed into five(-ish) letters.

Although that doesn't cover "ee", and "science", "diet", "quiet", etc still aren't examples (the "I" is the pronunciation only of "i", with "e" producing a subsequent "t(e)ch" sound.

aye is pronounced as long i, as in "aye aye sir".

So like "I"/"d(ye)", yeah. I steadfastly blame English orthography.

> Because ie is pronounced aye in English

Grief? Tier? Thief?

English spelling always has exceptions, partly because so many words come from foreign languages. The word "thief", for example, comes from an Old German word.

List of ie words sorted by commonness (*):

https://onelook.com/?w=*ie*&scwo=1&sswo=1&ssbp=1

Not sure I'd be in a rush to say "aye" was the default pronunciation. At best it may be marginally the single most common one.

(*) meaning the number of dictionaries the word is found in, not frequency of usage.

Knight: pronounced similar to the Monty Python sketch. In fact a lot of "weird" English orthography is just dialectic drift after orthographic ossification.

Because English is a terrible, thrown-together, inconsistent language, and nobody even using English words can keep completely straight what words are spelled "ie" or "ei".

There's a rhyme they teach children who are learning to read, "I before E except after C".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C

No matter what extra verses they add, there's still plenty of exceptions. English spelling is not consistent no matter how many rules you add to it.

English is the JavaScript of languages. As a result everything will be written in it eventually.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/

Edit: also the relationship between pronunciation, spelling and meaning is less architectural and more archeological as English developed in the nexus of at least two divergent language groups and reflects pragmatic choices and new development that lead to the appearance of inconsistency from the outside.

Isn't inconsistency just a natural facet of any language that developed organically over time? We aren't talking about a programming language here.

I don't see how it's any different to gendered articles in German not really having much of a logical basis to them or kanji readings in Japanese just being something you learn on a case by case basis. I'm only talking about languages I have personal experience with; I'm sure there are others that could be commented on.

German solved this by refactoring the spelling. My spelling grades went from Ds and Es to Bs over night. In hindsight is the most German thing to not only have centrally standardized spelling but to bring order to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of...

As so many pronunciation issues for native English speakers in other languages this goes back to the great vowel shift or the great vowel movement as I like to call it. I essence because of fashion English speakers decided to swap how vowels are pronounced and it's now out of sync with how other languages pronounce the same letters. Must be one of the most costly fashion trends in human history. It's also hard to understand to me why this isn't the first thing you learn in any foreign language class in English speaking countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

I think Americans pronounce names like Weinstein as 'winesteen'. So perhaps the pronunciation of the latter syllable makes German origin diphthongs confusing.

We do know how to pronounce Einstein though!

I’m sure you personally do, but I’ve noticed that many English speakers pronounce it without the “sh” sound in the middle.

Good point, in fact I retract my statement because of it. I was only thinking of the vowels.

Likely because the German ie is not at all pronounced like in pie, but some English ei like in reimbursed aren't that far off.

Roughly as close as the German Ei (noun) comes to the English ie in piej off, but not that far off. So it's kind of symmetric. Makes me wonder if there are any English words where we Germans are prone to do that flip?

But "ie" in English sometimes also is pronounced like "piece"? :) Ah, the woes of English pronunciation…

https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem....

True, English pronunciation and trying to explain something, that rarely ends well

ie and ei is a homophone?

Not in German. "ie" means just a long "i", "Krieg" is pronounced "Kreeg". "ei" ist pronounced like "ay" in "aye aye captain". So "Teil" is "Tayl".

No, they have distinct sounds.

Eisenhower (US President). Ai-suhn-hau-ur

Riesling (grape variety). Ree-sluhng

But, the sounds of individual vowels in German are different than English. I think the below is correct (based on the 2 years of German I took in college 20+ years ago, so YMMV)…

German short I = English short I

German long I = English long E

German short E = English short E

German long E = a sound that English doesn't have

No, listen to them on wikitionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiener https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wein

Not in german

Fun Trivia: When Volkswagen announced that their canteen would offer vegetarian and vegan alternatives, Germany's ex chancellor Schröder made the headlines with deriding this decision and calling the sausage the "Kraftriegel der Arbeiter" (worker's power bar).

Had to check this and it turns out that what you're saying is not quite correct:

The canteen stopped serving meat altogether which meant that the famous "VW-Currywurst" wouldn't be available anymore. That's what Schröder complained about, not the availability of vegan alternatives. He actually praised those in the same sentence.

To be precise: One of three or four canteens on the main site was affected. So there still was alternative.

Assuming 90:10 meat eaters to vegetarians, and a reduction of 25% of the capacity, 15% of workers who are meat eaters will have to eat at the vegetarian canteen.

Yes, but meat eaters may choose to eat a vegetarian meal on any given day. 15% seems like a plausible figure - meat eaters choosing 1 day a week to eat a vegetarian meal.

It would still have been available in another canteen right next door though. Also, the canteen which did. the change was not exactly catering to the blue-collar workers he was referencing, IIRC it was an office building.

Schröder makes every possible effort to make himself look stupid. He probably should have some currywurst with his buddy Putin.

It's highly unlikely they steamed the sausages at 350 °F. Much more likely they steamed them at 175 °C, which gives the sausages that little bit more zest.

Yeah that is definitely a metric sausage. Deserves a litre of beer.

Or half a litre. But definitely not a pint.

I'm curious how this was done at standard atmosphere.

Not at equilibrium, sausages are cooler then the (steamy) air.

In an open atmosphere, steam is 212F/100C (slightly less for higher altitudes).

The point is "steam" doesn't exist at 350F unless it's in a pressure cooker. It's a valid preparation technique but not common in German kitchens from my experience.

Steam heated by boiling water at sea level can't exceed 100C, but if you further heat the gaseous steam (e.g. against a hot metal surface of some kind) you can heat it further. This is called superheating. Once it's superheated, it behaves just like any other gas - can be as hot as you like (until it chemically breaks down at extreme temperatures).

In an oven at 200C, for example, with a little bit of water, the water would evaporate/boil and the resulting steam would be heated to whatever temperature the oven is at. The oven would be full of superheated (dry) steam. It's a matter of heat transfer, if you drip only a small amount of water slowly into the oven, it won't cool down much but the atmosphere can still be entirely steam.

What you are describing is just normal heating, not superheating.

"Superheating" means to heat something beyond the point of phase transition without it changing phase. Superheating would be heating water beyond 100 degree celsius.

If it's steam, you can't superheat it any more, you just heat it. You are correct that there is no limit how much you can heat steam.

Ah, I was using the "engineering" meaning. In engineering, "superheated steam" is steam heated beyond its boiling point at a given pressure.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheated_steam

https://www.spiraxsarco.com/learn-about-steam/steam-engineer...

In a steam boiler, the boiling and superheating are often done in different locations: the water is first evaporated in one section, then the resulting "saturated steam" (i.e. at vapor-liquid equilibrium) then passes through a hotter section, often called a superheater, which heats it further beyond the boiling point. Superheated steam is better for turbines than saturated steam.

Steam exists at 350 degrees in the same way bread can be cooked at 350 degrees and come out moist.

The bad assumption here is that all the water flashes off instantly, or that the temperature isn't referring to the thing you're cooking.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combi_steamer

No pressure needed.

I once was assigned to a project at Volkswagen and had the opportunity to eat at their canteen.

First of all, the quality of the canteen at Volkswagen is top notch, every day you could a wide variety of meals, a lot of different vegetables and salads. The only meal that was the same every day was the Currywurst made with the original Volkswagen sausage and fries. They even sold them prepackaged at the canteen. With Volkswagen branding.

I don't know at which plant you worked at, but that sadly is not true anymore. They are still being sold pre-packaged, there even was a vegan sausage once, I sadly did not buy it and since then I have never seen it again.

Fact of the day: Wiener are strictly called Frankfurter in Vienna because their inventor was a German who moved to Austria.

Bologna sausage is Lyoner (from Lyon) [0] in german, and parizer (from Paris) [1] in hungarian

0, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoner

1, https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parizer

And a 'Pariser' is a condom in German.

And "Hamburger" is a person from Hamburg, where the "u" is pronounced ⟨u⟩ like in engl. "boot". (The same pronounciation btw. as in the German surname "Trump".)

Ironically, Frankfurter in Germany refers to another kind of sausage made of beef (originally invented to circumvent jewish food laws against consuming pork), which has absolutely nothing to do with Wiener (or vienna "Frankfurter")

Even weirder fact: at the time it was not legal to mix pork and beef in Germany because there were different trade licenses for both meet types. Supposedly mixing in beef was thus first done in Vienna.

The dominant Portuguese manufacturer Nobre has adopted the Austrian notation.

e.g. https://www.emporiopt.ch/content/uploads/2021/08/salsichanob...

Danish Pastries are called Austrian Pastries in Denmark. In Austria they are called Pastries.

Car manufacturers have all sorts of fun products. Check out the Volvo Sound CD 9512935 featuring such hits as "sinus sweep" and "the final countdown"

https://www.volvooempartsdirect.com/oem-parts/volvo-sound-cd...

https://jalopnik.com/volvo-once-released-an-entire-album-of-...

https://www.discogs.com/release/11949117-Various-Sound-CD-Vo...

It seems to me that Jalopnik article is entirely based on a misunderstanding of what actually is on that CD. I get it's meant to put the sound system under stress in a controlled way, in order to _trigger_ the squeaks and rattles the customer laments during regular usage; it's not actually a recording of squeaks and rattles. "Another 100% correct hot take"? Way to miss the point entirely.

Boeing used to make furniture and canoes in order to keep their skilled wood and metal workers from being laid off during slow times.

They should do that again.

Peugeot also makes all kind of kitchenware: https://fr.peugeot-saveurs.com

And bicycles: https://cycles.peugeot.fr

Both of which are great!

Richard Hammond visited the factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h24Fw23kRs

Volkswagen Originalteil Sausages - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19611673 - April 2019 (22 comments)

I feel like there have been other threads about this...anyone?

From Sept 1, 2021 there was "Volkswagen to stop making its best-selling product: VW-branded sausages" from the Register -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28379815 -- 0 Comments at the time.

Their ketchup has part number ZDK 259 101. They had the best curry ketchup ever, but for some obscure reason changed the supplier and recipe in 2018. Now it is just a curry ketchup like any other. Like the McDonald's szechuan sauce this is a great motivation to invent a time machine.

You can purchase the new one directly from Amazon if you desire:

https://www.amazon.de/VOLKSWAGEN-Gew%C3%BCrz-Ketchup-Origina...

When I worked at Boeing, the coffee machine had a MIL SPEC taped to it that properly explained the procedure in making regulation milspec coffee.

(Mil specs are analogous to a having a standard library of subroutines. Engineers don't have to re-invent how to lubricate a bearing or tighten a bolt or cad plate a part, they just specify the relevant mil spec.)

One of my first jobs included typesetting MSDSes¹ from a database. One of the things we had an MSDS for was water.

⸻

1. Material Safety Data Sheet. These are most commonly provided for the assorted potentially hazardous chemicals in industrial use.

Hey now, that dihydrogen monoxide is dangerous stuff. Extended contact with the solid form can cause severe injury, and the gaseous form in significant quantities doesn't even need extended contact, it does its damage almost immediately.

Even the relatively safe and stable liquid form can be deadly if drank in significant quantity or inhaled in even small quantities, and a person submerged in it for even a few minutes without special equipment is in a bad spot.

Not to mention it's made with rocket fuel. And they put this stuff in our schools! For shame.

There's an ISO standard for tea, too

And an ANSI standard (ANSI K100.1-1974) for dry martinis.

I might try and order these from my local VW garage spares counter to see what they say when the description comes up on the computer.

It's probably a standard replacement part for the fridge in a California campervan.

It's probably used if (...wait for it...) you go banger racing! Sorry, that joke is the wurst I could come up with.

If the fridge in your campervan ran out of sausages, why not?

Please write about it and share. I have a friend who works at a VW dealership if you need the hook up.

They actually changed the product recently and now there is a smaller variant too

https://e-center-knauer.edeka-shops.de/en/all-products/chill...

Those sound delicious!

I wish there were a way to get them, other than buying a car (I like VWs, but don't need one).

[UPDATE]: Maybe you can get them separate: https://e-center-knauer.edeka-shops.de/en/all-products/chill...

Tell your local VW dealership you hear "grumbling" in your car and you want them to order you 199 398 500 A to stop it.

I'm sure they only heard that joke few hundred times

In Germany, you can find them in many EDEKA supermarkets (the biggest supermarket chain in germany).

Curry and ketchup is a surprisingly good combination.

It's very popular in Germany - the Currywurst is a German classic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst

Fun curry fact: In the Netherlands and Belgium we often eat curry with fries. Mayo, Curry and raw onions a common topping. Called "speciaal" [1]. Though in other parts, they will use Tomatoketchup (mayo and raw onions) rather than curry.

If you ever visit the netherlands, make sure you get one of these. Or better even: frietje oorlog (fries with war).

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friet#Friet_speciaal

It's the basis for the world famous Berliner Currywurst.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst

"Die Erfindung der Currywurst" by Uwe Timm, which claims that the Currywurst was actually invented in Hamburg, was required reading when I went to high school in Hamburg ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Curried_Sausa... - it's fiction :)

Currywurst is something that I find kinda meh every time I eat it and yet I am always craving it

Where do you get yours?

I've been disappointed by some Currywurt dishes, too. I think there are lots of factors for a good Currywurst, but when you've got old friends and a cold beer at one of the parties in your hometown together, it often is okay...

Basically everywhere. Honestly the texture of the meat is pretty unappealing. It's obviously always quite moist and squeaky, but I'm English so I'm used to a chunky sausage meat. I've tried everything from a proper Döner place, to a microwave pack, to a Jazz fair which has proper crispy skin and came with great curly fries, to the best reviewed one in Hamburg near the Reeperbahn, and some of those were really good, but the actual basic product of "squeaky homogenous German sausage" is generally just not a great thing. Yet somehow I always crave it, and have got it quite often.

I see it like the bigmac I get once a decade while going home drunk at 3am and everything else is closed. It's good when your body is in junkfood craving mode but I would never get that if I have another choice.

And that's in Berlin, supposedly the best place to eat these. It's a hot dog sausage with ketchup and curry, you can only go so far with that combination

A single serving probably gives you close to your daily needs in fat and salt with a good portion of sugar too so yeah, literally addictive

Its one of the best currywurst available in germany

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