WORD OF THE DAY: PLÖRRE
German for Insiders
Today another useful German word worth remembering AND using: Plörre stands for a beverage that is too thin, too watery to have any proper taste.
It is mostly used to criticise bland, watery quality of coffee or beer but can be used in many other contexts, including soup or murky, unrecognisable content of a bucket. In the UK you could probably call it “swill”.
The word itself is said to have spread from the north of Germany where the word Plürre or Plöör - both from plörren or to cry, to shed tears. Which makes sense: crying into your cup of coffee or your beer is not exactly going to improve its taste, is it?
Lower Saxony in the north of Germany most likely took the word from Dutch (pleuren) and / or French pleuerer - to weep, to cry.
Interesting article. Could I request something? I do not speak German, but am slowly trying to learn/recognize words and phrases in German. I liked how you had a phrase in German in this article. Would it be possible to explain to newbies like me how German word order works now and then? A sentence could be written in German, like you had in this article, but shown again in English using proper German word order. Seeing something is sometimes easier than learning the rule in abstract - the rule can come later.
Anyway, I do enjoy reading your posts, and appreciate the work you put into them.