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Comment by wizzwizz4 | Hacker News Reader

I have never been able to track down what "cnoeppkes" is supposed to mean.

My guess is "Knöpfchen" (German for "little button"). The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)

> The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)

Not quite. The -ke ending here is just another regional variant of the diminutive. The s at the end is a colloquial plural form.

So the transformation from German to this weird german-english would be:

Knöpfe - Knöpfchen - Knöppkes - Cnoeppkes

Another detail you didn't mention: knopp or knoppe is a Low German (northern German) variant of Standard German Knopf. That's where the pf--pp alternation arises.

Knopp is actually common in southern German dialects as well, including palatinate and hessian. Using -ke for diminutives is common across Westphalia, especially the Munster region.

That's interesting because in Polish it is "ek" and my great-grand mother was part of the diaspora there before the war.

Кнопки (k-nope-key) is Russian for "buttons". Maybe related.

There are so many words in our language that are very clear loan-words from German!

Definitely means buttons. Source: am German

Although it is not needed, the first line of this article confirms that meaning:

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

And the article is interesting anyway.

Knob? https://www.etymonline.com/word/knob#etymonline_v_1916

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