TÜRKLINKE

This post was written 12 years ago.
Tue, 04 Dec 2012

For some weird reason, I really like this word. It has nothing to do with Turks, but is made up of two halves – TÜR meaning door and the other half meaning "handle". Hence door handle.


To me it just sounds right -- I think "klinke" is exactly the sort of clinking noise a door handle makes when you open it, particularly if it's actually a handle, not a knob, fnarr fnarr. Of course TÜR shouldn't be mixed up with TOR, which means "gate" as in the BRANDENBURGER TOR – the famous monument in central Berlin. You know, the one with the pillars and the horses on top.


When it comes to football, TOR is also a goal, which is why TORWART is a goal keeper. Germany's produced its fair share of top shot-stoppers in the past – from the kindly-looking Jens Lehmann who was at Arsenal for years to nasty Toni Schumacher who bulldozed that French striker in the 1982 World Cup semi-finals in Spain and never even got a yellow card. Not that I'm bitter or anything – it was, of course, Germany who got through at England's expense in the previous round, partly because former Hamburg striker Kevin Keegan couldn't find the back of the German TOR.

This post was written 12 years ago, which in internet time is really, really old. This means that what is written above, and the links contained within, may now be obsolete, inaccurate or wildly out of context, so please bear that in mind :)
Tags: Onomatapeic / Culture /
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