Number Idioms in German

Cats have been around for thousands of years. They are said to have more than one life. Just how many lives depends on where you are. Arabian and Turkish cats have six lives. For some reason German or Spanish cats have seven lives. In the English-speaking world, cats get two more. Of course, in reality, a cat anywhere has only one life, like all living creatures. So how did felines get a reputation for having additional lives?

A domestic cat (eine Hauskatze/Felis catus). PHOTO: David Corby (Wikimedia Commons)

In ancient Egypt, cats were revered, some even considered gods. In the Middle Ages cats had a generally bad rap. They were associated with witches, Satan, and paganism. The black cat superstition (der Aberglaube) is still an international thing in the 21st century. Yet these nimble creatures could fall from great heights and manage to land on their paws (the “righting reflex”) and walk away unharmed. Was it witchcraft? A superpower? In any case they seemed to have more than one life. But why multiple lives? I don’t think anyone really knows why, much less why seven in German, but nine in English.

One common explanation is that the number seven has long been considered holy or lucky: the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Deadly Sins/Virtues. Even among the Germanic tribes, seven was considered lucky, even before the arrival of Christianity. In the British Isles on the other hand, possibly influenced by the Vikings, it was nine that was the charmed number. The ancient Greeks as well considered the number nine the trinity of all trinities (3+3+3) and a supernatural number associated with the gods. They believed it took nine days to fall from heaven to Earth. William Shakespeare mentioned a cat’s nine lives in Romeo and Juliet in 1597. An old English proverb refers to the idea of cats having nine lives: “A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays.”

More about 7 and 9: Clouds and Heaven
There is also at least one other similar 7-versus-9 English/German expression pattern. For instance, if we talk about clouds – in a positive sense – we indeed may be on cloud nine in English, but “auf Wolke sieben” (on cloud seven) in German. “Cloud seven” in German is similar to being in seventh heaven in English. But Germans also say “im siebten Himmel” (in seventh heaven) when they’re blissful.

Aristotle and various religious texts (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, etc.) are credited with the idea of seven heavens, each of which corresponded to one of the seven heavenly bodies known in antiquity (the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). The seventh heaven was the highest and closest to God. And the number seven has long been viewed as blessed or lucky. Is cloud 9 even higher, and thus better? Who knows.

Der Trick 17

This expression was a new one to me, and I’ve been teaching and learning German for decades. (In Switzerland the equivalent is “Trick 77.”) But somehow I missed it. At first glance, English-speakers might think Trick 17 (siebzehn) is similar to “Catch 22,” but nope. Weit gefehlt! (Not even close! Missed by a mile! Wrong.) In French there is the expression Système D, which some people claim has been adopted into English. But I’m not familiar with it at all. In any case, the French “System D” is supposed to be similar to “Trick 17,” but it’s not really a good match either. There was also a 1966 Eastern German (GDR/DDR) TV movie called Trick 17b, but I don’t know much about it. The book shown below seems to indicate that the “Trick 17” expression is fairly common in German.

BUCH: Trick 17 – 365 Alltagstipps. Lifehacks für alle Lebenslagen. 365 Kniffe – sogenannte Lifehacks – aus allen Lebensbereichen, die den Alltag erleichtern. > Dieses Buch von Amazon.de bestellen. PHOTO: Amazon.de

In my search for a good English equivalent for Trick 17, I stumbled on the 1980s TV series MacGyver, starring Richard Dean Anderson, which also ran on German television (Sat.1) back then, and was revived in the US in 2016, with a different cast. The German Wiktionary definition of Trick 17 is: einfacher, origineller und einfallsreicher Lösungsweg für ein Problem (“[a] simple, original, and ingenious solution to a problem”). Well, that’s pretty much the definition of a “MacGyver fix.” The TV show lent that term to everyday US English. So you could say that the English for “Trick 17” is “a MacGyver” or a “MacGyver fix.” It’s a type of so-called life hack (Lifehack in German). (If anyone has a better English translation, please let me know.) A German example for using Trick 17 that I found online goes: Die Schublade klemmt nicht mehr! Wie hast du denn das jetzt geschafft? – Na ja, mit dem Trick 17! (The drawer doesn’t stick any more! How did you manage that now? – Well, with Trick 17 of course!)

Why 17? No one seems to know for certain. The one possible explanation I found claimed a connection to Whist, the old card game and direct predecessor to Bridge. Both games involve trick taking, but Whist has 13 tricks, not 17, and I couldn’t find anything to confirm anything tied to the number 17. And that still wouldn’t explain why the Swiss say Trick 77.

More German Idioms with Numbers (Redewendungen mit Zahlen)

Like all languages, German has many number idioms and expressions. Some of them, as we learned above, are similar to English. A good example is the German saying “Aller guten Dinge sind drei,” which is pretty much the same thing as the English expression, “All good things come in threes.” Both may date from the Middle Ages and the Latin principle known as omne trium perfectum, the rule of three. But as with many language matters, the origin is uncertain.

Below are more examples of German sayings, idioms, or expressions with numbers. Some are similar to English, while others are not.

Ach, du grüne Neune! = I’ll be damned! Oh, my goodness!
Explanation: The “green nine” refers to the nine of spades (Pik neun) or green leaf (Blatt) suit used in the German Skat card game, considered an unlucky card.

Dazu bringen mich keine zehn Pferde. = Wild horses couldn’t make me do that.
Explanation: While the German phrase mentions a specific number of horses (10), the English refers simply to “wild horses.”

in null Komma nichts (0,0)/im Nu = in (less than) no time, in a flash
Explanation: Literally “in zero point nothing” (decimal figures in German use a comma rather than a period/point)

neunmalklug (der/die Neunmalkluge) = too clever by half, like a know-it-all (smart aleck; know-it-all)
Explanation: The literal meaning is “nine times smart.”

sich auf seine vier Buchstaben setzen = to sit down on one’s butt/rear end
Explanation: The “four letters” (of the alphabet) in this expression refer to the word Popo (butt, rear end); in Bavaria and Austria the number may change to five (for Arsch), making the expression slightly cruder.
Example: Nun setz dich endlich auf deine vier Buchstaben und iss auf! = Now set your butt down (on the chair) and finish eating! (parent to child)

unter vier Augen = in private
Explanation: Literally, “under four eyes” (seen only by the two eyes of each of two people)

die oberen Zehntausend = high society, the upper class, the one percent
Explanation: Literally “the upper 10,000”

ein Gesicht, wie sieben Tage Regenwetter = in a bad mood, with a long face
Explanation: Literally “a face like a week of rainy weather.” (I like this expression. It’s so German.)

zwischen zwei Stuhlen sitzen = to be unable to decide, be indecisive, torn between this or that
Explanation: Literally “to sit between two chairs”

Do you have a favorite German expression that uses numbers? Please let me know.

– HF

Also see: German Language – Links to more German vocabulary and posts about the German language from The German Way