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up vote 4 down vote favorite

In a chat room, someone sent a link to this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqAdxN1IWQQ . In the video they use the word

Stackenblochen

I have never heard the word, even though I believe I know German reasonably well. Can anyone please clarify? Apparently, some Germans are ashamed when they hear the word?

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Like the vid :-) – Jan Jun 20 '11 at 10:43
don't feed the troll. – chaos0815 Jul 5 '11 at 18:06
@chaos huh, I'm not trolling... – Johannes Schaub - litb Jul 5 '11 at 18:08
ja klar, Hannes... – chaos0815 Jul 5 '11 at 18:17

5 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

This is a video that displays stupid stereotypes of German people, probably done by and for people who "know" Germans only from bad Word War II movies.

Words with too many "en"s are often a sign of English satire of German, because they are based on the misconception that the infinitive is always the root of a word, just because this is usually the case in English.

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1  
Not sure why this got downvoted? Sounds about right. – Pekka 웃 Jun 20 '11 at 3:51
ah now I understand! any chance you know from what movie that stereotype is taken from? thanks a bunch – Johannes Schaub - litb Jun 20 '11 at 10:51
1  
That's not from a particular movie, but basically one set of stereotypes for Germans that you'll find the world over since World War II. It's especially often found in English-speaking countries. According to those stereotypes, Germans are very accurate (hence the game with the right angle), they live in dull surroundings (look at that room) and are also merciless and/or nazis (look at those nazi officers beating up the contestant) - as a result, this set of stereotypes makes Germans appear more like machines than humans. I still find that video funny as hell :-) – Jan Jun 20 '11 at 13:10
up vote 4 down vote

This video is a satire - there is nothing like this in Germany nor does this word exist.

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up vote 3 down vote

I'm German and I promise that neither does that word (or similar words) exist, nor are the actors in the so called game show Germans. They have an American accent.

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Ich musste gleich an "steckenbleiben" denken. – user unknown Dec 11 '12 at 17:43
up vote 2 down vote

The word is completely made up by Conan Obrien (the comedian/host of the show) and his people to combine the English words "stack" and "block" into a pseudo-German word, as in the game being about stacking blocks, a task used in psychiatric evaluations among other things. There are a lot of directions you could take this. This is typical humor by Conan.

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up vote 0 down vote

Old traditions die hard, see this 1961 educational video featuring Messrs. Cagney and Lothar...

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