Many are the Germanisms in the English language. Germans are among the biggest groups who ever immigrated to the U.S., after all. Therefore, the influence on the language. One of these words that you probably know very well is the term “kaput”. Almost exactly the same pronunciation as in German, just with a little spelling deformity – Germans spell the word “kaputt”.
I checked the term’s origin, and interestingly, Wictionary points to French. “Capot” (pronounce cup-‘poh, meaning hood) means the winning of all the tricks by one player in the card game of piquet. I imagine somebody calling out, “Capot!” when winning like this – and it must have made the other players feel pretty destroyed. Especially as they had to pay up, big time. Piquet has first been mentioned in 1535 by French writer François Rabelais. As the card game made its way to the French court and French culture was spreading all across European courts, it is easy to perceive how the word became fashionable to the point of forgetting about its origin.
“Kaputt“, or „kaput“, means destroyed, useless, broken, ripped, ruined, etc. In German, it can also be used to describe a person’s state of exhaustion. There are other German terms that are used instead of kaputt, such as futsch (pronounce footsh), hops, hin, hinüber (pronounce hee-‘noohba, i.e. passed), or im Eimer (pronounce im ‘imah, i.e. in the bucket). Only the latter can also be used for the description of a person’s state.
There is even more to explore about “kaputt“! It is also the title song of an album by the Canadian band Destroyer. Here is the video.
And the English written version is even the name of a product brand: https://kaputproducts.com/.
Would you have thought that there is so much to find out about a simple little Germanism? Me neither. I’ll stop here before I’ll be all kaput.
I heard this word many times growing up from my mom. I still use it today when anything is broken or not working correctly. She used many German words probably learned from her Austrian father, although I never heard him use those words.
A very useful word all around.
What a fun story! Indeed, I guess the use of wording sometimes depends on the generation. My mother wouldn’t have used it either. I would use k.o. in German for my own state of exhaustion. Another generation, an Anglicism, at that …