Educational Terms: diener (laboratory assistant), festschrift (commemorative publication), semester, seminar.

B). German Influence

Most German borrowings came into English during the 19th century. Although both noodle, first cited by the Dictionary of American English in 1812 and sauerkraut in 1813, seem to have been used in England considerably earlier, there is every reason to believe that the American use of these words represents an independent borrowing. These words, along with Kris Kringle in 1830, loafer (lazybones) in 1835, poker in 1836 and ouch [au] in 1839, must have come from Pennsylvania or its derivative settlements.

The list of German borrowings gives us an idea of the cultural contact between German immigrants and their English-speaking hosts centered mainly at the dining room table and the bar. There is a decided persistence of food terms and words reflecting pleasant but commonplace social contacts.

In contrast, the educational terms reflect not so much the German migration to America as the 19th-century practice of American educators and professional men to travel to Germany for advanced university studies.

Terms related to food and drink: beer soup, blutwurst, bock beer (a variety of dark lager beer), delicatessen (prepared foods, such as cooked meats, cakes, etc.), dunk (to dip something into a liquid), frankfurter (a smoked sausage made of beef and pork put into a casing), hamburger, lager beer [‘la:ga], liverwurst, noodle (a thin strip of dough, of varying widths), pretzel (a kind of salted bread or biscuit, often made in the form of knot or ring), pumpernickel (a dark, heavy bread made of rye), sauerbraten (a kind of roast), sauerkraut (cabbage, which has been cut into small pieces and pickled), schnitzel, smearcase (cottage cheese), snits (slices of dried fruit), stolle (a kind of bread for Christmas), switzer cheese, wienerwurst (sausage stuffed in long, slender links), zwieback (a kind of dry biscuit).

Social Terms: beer garden (an open-air spot furnished with tables and chairs, where beer is retailed), bower (jack or knave), Kris Kringle (St. Nicholas), pinochle (a card game), poker, rathskeller (a beer restaurant below the street level or in a basement), saengerfest (a singing festival), stein (beer mug), turnverein (a club or society of turners)

Miscellaneous Terms: bub (a playful form used to boys and young men), bum (bottom), hausfrau (used either as a compliment or as a criticism of the woman, whose main interests are cleaning, cooking, washing, etc.), hex (to bewitch, a witch), katzenjammer (mess, disorder; hangover), loafer (one too lazy to work), nix (no, nothing), ouch, phooey (a term of content distaste or disbelief), spiel (well-prepared speech to persuade or convince the listener to do something), wunderkind (child prodigy).