German Language Stack Exchange is a bilingual question and answer site for speakers of all levels who want to share and increase their knowledge of the German language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
Sign up to join this community
We have a new foreign employee and she said:
"Ich habe keine blasse Ahnung."
We thought it was a mix of blasser Schimmerund leiseste Ahnung and was done because she is foreign. But she said it was something she looked up. So we looked it up in PONS and there it is.
Now we are wondering is this really used by native speakers and maybe in which region of Germany it might be common. Because we never heard of it here (Ruhr-area, Lower-Rhine-area)
Duden Volume 2 – Das Stilwörterbuch (2010) includes „er hat keine blasse Ahnung“ among other similar expressions:
er hat kaum eine, [absolut] keine, keine blasse, nicht die geringste/leiseste/mindeste/entfernteste Ahnung von Mathematik
This entry has no special style or usage labels. Therefore, it may be considered normal language or neutral in style.
To answer your question whether it is used by native speakers (I'm from Munich): I never heard of "blasse Ahnung", but the other ones are quite common, I use them, too.
