Husband and wife

Rainer asked, "Husband? But why don't you say 'man'? In German, we say Mann. You say 'wife'; that sounds like Weib — that's good. That's easy for me. But 'husband'? I don't understand. It's not good for me."

Teaching beginners wasn't easy — especially for a beginner teacher!

Rainer, the Magnum lookalike and patriarch of the group of eight bewildered Bavarians in my first-ever English class, often expressed what the rest of the class was thinking. Which was a good thing. He would try to find ways to remember new vocabulary, often coming up with unforgettable mnemonics or memory aids. He'd watch for cognates — words that looked the same in both German and English, and that often had the same etymological root, like Weib and "wife". Sometimes, though, he got stuck — as he did when we covered "have got".

"Have got. Have got? Why 'have got'? Why not 'have'? Was hat Gott damit zu tun? Oder ist der Karel Gott gemeint?"

The laughter seemed to last for several minutes.

Who the hell was Karel Gott? It was my turn to be bewildered.

Trying to get on with the lesson, I asked Johanna: "What's your husband's name?" Rainer was just going to have to accept that Mann was "husband" in English.

Apparently not.

"Husband!" muttered Rainer under his moustache, shaking his head.

"What's your husband's name?" I asked Johanna again.

"Hans," said Johanna.

"Good! Your husband's name is Hans."

"Ach, jetza woas i!" exclaimed Rainer, thumping the table with his fist.

"'Husband': that's like Halsband'"

* Of course, husband and Halsband are not cognates. According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, "husband" comes from the Old English "hús", meaning "house" and the Old English or Old High German "búa", meaning "to dwell" or "have a household". Rainer had created another mnemonic! The class always remembered the word "husband" because it sounded a little like "Halsband" — especially when said in a Bavarian accent!