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As a casual student of German, is there any context in “der Schmetterling” which is not translated as “the butterfly”?
by zirkonit 10y ago
As a casual student of German, is there any context in “der Schmetterling” which is not translated as “the butterfly”?
- jaeh 10y agoif you think about the butterfly effect, calling it schmetterlingseffekt just sounds way more badass :p but you are right, schmetter does not originate from "smasher" (as i and probably most german speakers assumed), but instead from "Schmetten", which means butter or cream. this also means that this word is translated perfectly, but the german word has a whole different meaning nowadays, i personally have never heard the word schmette. thanks for the motivation to look at this, feeling a bit smarter now and finally know why the schmetterling is called butterfly. :)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]