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Fascinating. I love language. Could you though please explain the joke about "attention please"? Didn't get it. No sarcasm, just curious.



"Attention please" sounds like "A Tännchen please" spoken with a Saxon accent (e.g. the "ch" is pronounced as "sh").

"Tännchen" is the diminutive of "Tanne", meaning "fir".

So a Saxon who doesn't know what a fir is called in English might ask for "A Tännchen please" -- which would sound almost exactly like "Attention please".


"attention" sounds like "ä Tänn-schen" in German, which is Saxony dialect for "a small fir".




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