Camouflaged early risers stalk through the woods, armed; hikers wear particularly bright colors; and the dogs all walk obediently on a leash: Hunting season is just around the corner!

For non-hunters, all of this is pretty baffling: You sit there motionless for hours, watching, waiting for that one moment when you can pull the trigger with precision. So, basically, just like in marketing!

The parallels between hunting and marketing are truly unmistakable. Except, perhaps, that marketing people don’t hang stuffed trophies on their walls. At least, that’s what I think. So here’s the ultimate roundup of phrases you can use in both hunting and marketing.

Everyday life: «Damn, it’s so early in the morning. Pass me the hip flask.»… For hunters, this line tends to come around 4:00 a.m.; for marketing people, it’s at the first meeting (no matter what time it is)—but in both contexts, it’s absurdly early. What follows are hours of a remarkable mix of strategic inactivity and a bit of frantic hustle. An outside observer quickly gets the impression that absolutely nothing is happening here. In reality, of course, complex processes are taking place—it’s all mental work. That’s why the standard explanation in both worlds is: «It might look easier than it is» or «It’s actually more exhausting than it looks.».

Strategic Inaction

The long but important periods of strategic inaction bring to light some astonishing insights: «The wind has shifted» can mean that the deer has picked up a human scent—or that the measures taken were completely off the mark. The result is the same: you can start all over again. Often, whether up in the hunting blind or sitting in an office chair, you’ll hear: «Let’s just see what happens for now,» «Sometimes you just have to wait,» «Just don’t lose your cool now,» often followed by «Trust me, I’ve been there.» And when all else fails, the ultimate phrase is uttered: «We need to reposition ourselves.».

Headless Hectic

The actual «moment of truth»—that is, the moment when the buck is supposed to be shot—is usually missed. Then, either «Damn, we’re too early» or “Damn, we’re too late” gives voice to the failure.

And as soon as something finally gets going, these lines are just rattled off in a rush so you can then go back to making a name for yourself with hours of carefully considered idleness: «Just don’t lose your cool now. Hand me the hip flask… ah, crap, too late. Shit, it’s so early in the morning. I guess the wind has shifted. We need to reposition ourselves. Or we’ll just wait and see what happens. Because sometimes you just have to wait. Trust me, I speak from experience!»

Well then, good luck to all you avid hunters.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

The Eleventh Commandment

In the summer, nobody wants to communicate because «the target audience» seems to vanish off the face of the earth during this time. So the market is swarming with all sorts of interchangeable splashy summer promotions—barely distinguishable from one another and blending seamlessly into the back-to-school aesthetic. And then that’s it for another year. Summer in Switzerland may be short, but even that feels like it lasts forever.

Where are all the shoppers, anyway? A good number of them might actually take a two-week vacation sometime between mid-June and the end of August. But surely not all at once. And besides, you’re not completely cut off from the world.

Cappuccino in Bibione

Just because political life, government offices, and cultural events used to come to a temporary standstill in the summer—and there was therefore less news—everyone today acts as if it were a law of nature that you shouldn’t communicate during the summer. The eleventh commandment, so to speak, is: Thou shalt not advertise during summer vacation! And there are plenty of fanatical adherents.

The summer slump has become a dogma. Perhaps partly out of self-interest. After all, no one wants to have to work at full speed all year round; surely it’s okay to slow down a bit every now and then, and so on. And it makes you sound especially smart when you say in a meeting, «But this absolutely has to be out BEFORE summer vacation, before EVERYONE IS GONE!!!!?!»

A little spoiler that might ruin the fun: The same people who are supposedly unavailable throughout July and August actually spend six hours a day on Instagram during that time—instead of three—and, out of sheer boredom, discuss just how expensive that afternoon cappuccino in Bibione has become. Digital detox is so yesterday. And you should take advantage of that, because there’s less competition, which usually means lower costs, and you tend to reach people who haven’t been bombarded with ads. Win-win-win!

By the way: The next column will be published in August. After all, it’s okay to take a break once in a while.

The warm, (supposedly somehow) healing water, the bubbling massage, the lightness of being… with your eyes closed, you enjoy your time at the thermal spa. Or do you perhaps close your eyes to escape the flabby, hairy, moldy reality? Because it’s not at all like it is in the brochure.

Reality is obviously rarely suitable for advertising. The sweet spot between aesthetics and emotional appeal often lies in a kind of curated reality: what’s shown isn’t real, but it’s real enough. It isn’t false, either, but it’s false enough. It’s that much-vaunted authenticity. Ordering the coarse, greasy pork belly with spicy sauce at an Asian restaurant and bravely trying to eat it all with chopsticks feels authentic. What would be “real,” however, is devouring a mountain of chicken feet with relish—by hand and with a sauce—in a faceless megacity amid the exhaust fumes of mopeds, after which most people would spend the rest of the evening in the emergency room.

Tiki Soda and Sunstroke

Speaking of moped exhaust pipes: A «consumer-oriented» retailer is currently playing this game between authenticity and its optimized version to great effect. On the posters, kids are still allowed to walk the dog themselves, rosy-cheeked female soccer players cheer together at the neighborhood tournament, and the village youth knock back a few Tiki beers on the bench behind the playground. Of course, they don’t mention that the dog’s breath stinks to high heaven, that everyone threw up at the pickup game because of heatstroke, and that the village kids are actually puffing on «cigarettes.» This idyllic, nostalgic rural vibe is brought to life using today’s authenticity codes: wild, slightly overexposed images in a candid, off-the-cuff snapshot style, paired with a casually tossed-off, simple headline. It’s as if the little sister had done it, not the expensive agency. Why does it work? Because it’s just credible enough not to be off-putting.

In a thermal spa, however, authenticity has no place, because things can quickly get a bit unpleasant there. That’s why utterly uninteresting, run-of-the-mill models strike stiff poses while projecting absolute relaxation in a deserted facility—completely free of potbellies and chicken feet. Admittedly, this is neither real nor authentic, and certainly doesn’t qualify for the advertising “sweet spot.” But sometimes you just have to turn a blind eye.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Ad copy is a mirror of our clichéd world: every headline is a little clever and funny. But even «Let me entertain you» gets boring after a while. Sometimes—but only sometimes—certain pieces of copy still make me truly happy: a little allusion here, a really awesome turn of phrase there, a razor-sharp thought that thunders straight into my heart and mind as unexpectedly as a kid’s trick. Goooal!

Pressure, Time, and Heat

These hidden gems usually grow only in completely inaccessible places, protected from the sun and fresh air—and, above all, from the eyes of overly cautious editorial teams. But when you find one, the world sparkles for a moment. Of course, there are areas where these treasures tend to cluster a bit more. Namely, where pressure and warmth are high and time is available. Pressure drives one to surpass oneself, and it arises simply from taking the task seriously. The warmth is palpable through the care that’s been poured into it. In other words: love. And not some cheap, sexy, sleazy kind of love, but love as if it were your own flesh and blood. What about time? After all, you don’t have it, yet you have to make time for it. On the one hand, this takes the form of undivided attention, because that makes time feel as though it stretches into infinity. And on the other hand, experience is nothing other than time: it is the time invested so far in developing skill—and thus also in the result.

A bunch of expensive bullshit

Anything produced under different circumstances is just cheap rhinestones—at first glance, to the untrained eye, sometimes almost indistinguishable from the real thing and widely accepted. But still, they’re just replaceable trinkets.

Sure, our business demands exactly that—because it’s cheap, fast, and can be produced reliably in the quantities needed. So it’s mass production; it’s empty talk by the meter. Legitimate, but not precious. Unless it is. Because no one’s stopping you from trying your hand at gemstones anyway and getting the most out of the process—or, rather, pouring love and time into it. Oh wait, sorry. There is something that stops you from doing that: the fact that you’ll still only get paid for cheap goods. And that if you don’t succeed, instead of a diamond, you’ll be left with a pretty expensive but unsellable pile of bullshit.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Taking responsibility, letting yourself be pinned down, or taking a stand are definitely out of style. You, too, can use your choice of words (more or less subtly) to make it clear that you like to dodge issues and make excuses. Just follow these instructions, and you’ll reliably become unreliable:

Guidance on Non-Binding Nature

By using impersonal pronouns like «one» or «we,» you blur the lines of responsibility—as elegantly as an octopus. Rest assured that it’s already clear who’s being referred to when «someone should take out the trash again»: certainly not you! This classic never gets old and always works.

To add a little more variety to passing the buck, use nominalizations and passive constructions. Here’s another everyday example from the wonderful world of household chores: «The grocery shopping still needs to be taken care of.» Boom—two birds with one stone. And the modal verb in the conditional tense takes it one step further. The message is clear precisely because it’s so wonderfully vague: You’re not doing anything right now, and besides, you don’t care who does it or exactly how.

Maybe, a little, possibly

Not only do you like to pass the buck, but you also don’t want to be pinned down? Then qualifying terms and modal verbs are definitely part of your favorite repertoire: maybe, a little, possibly, can, must, should. You can’t rely on any of these expressions or constructions—any more than you can rely on you! And the best part: these wonderful little words can be easily sprinkled in here and there—just go ahead and use them.

Last but not least, your writing must make it clear that nothing here is clear at all. Generalize—after all, you don’t want to end up in the awkward position of directly confronting someone. Downplay the issue or use vague references that lead nowhere. «Some on the team don’t think the situation is ideal»? That’s how you stay vague! Or resort to the clumsy but effective conditional—after all, as Stromberg knew: “Would have, could have, bike chain.” That way, you undermine everything, even the last shred of meaning.

Why all the fuss?

Sure, you could write precisely, but you don’t want to. Because being imprecise is a welcome way out of quite a few situations. For example, when you’re writing a column about your own opinion but want to avoid the word «I» at all costs so you don’t actually end up talking about yourself.

Of course, most of these vague, wishy-washy constructions happen unintentionally. Hardly anyone actively considers, while writing, how they might come across as relativizing, vague, or impersonal. And so they speak volumes, because they reliably reveal unconscious insecurities. So anyone who writes unclearly either has a good reason—or has a good reason but doesn’t realize it.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

If you were too lazy to read, you could often tell from the punctuation whether a professional had written a text or not: professionals usually make full use of the possibilities. Of course, there are also purists who (deliberately) don't do this - so of course this test was never completely reliable.

However, anyone who is too lazy to read today and discovers a dash somewhere immediately suspects an AI behind it. For some, it is even a sure sign that «cheating» has taken place. But this test is more than uncertain.

General suspicion

Texts written in a clearly human way suddenly come under general suspicion, the dash becomes a mental trick.

Why is the dash preferred by the AI? Or to put it another way: Why are other punctuation marks still underrepresented despite training by professional texts?

On the one hand, the dash can be used in many different ways. This means that the risk of getting something wrong in terms of content is lower than with other punctuation marks that are very rule-based or require logical relationships. Even with commas, the AI remains conservative because it could also make semantic mistakes there. So when in doubt, it doesn't use one.

Dashes also have a loosening and accessible effect, while other punctuation marks, such as the beloved semicolon, seem rather strange and academic - but AI wants (has to) please or risk as little as possible. Certainty is more important than conciseness.

Divine Drama Queen

The dash test may therefore already work, but not as intended: It is not the presence of dashes that is at best an indication of AI texts, but rather whether and how other punctuation marks are also used - or not. But this requires a closer, more knowledgeable look.

Despite general suspicion, professionals will hopefully continue to use this divine sign. After all, it provides a special added value: being a gap. A line that holds or develops a thought before moving on. What a drama queen! What a wonderful (human) invention! That's why line length is so important. Unfortunately, the character sometimes ends up too short, as a «minus». But it must, MUST!, be half-four in order to unfold its full effect. Even the AI can do that.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Imagine yourself in the Wild West, it's oppressively hot, it's five to twelve, it's high noon. A gunslinger with her eyes squeezed shut. Sweat is pouring, her jaw muscles are twitching and so is her trigger finger. Maximum tension. Because questions after questions are suddenly popping up in the room and making you really nervous. What the hell do you mean by funny - and am I up to it? Do you think it's as funny as I do? Are we talking about haha-funny or rather aha-funny, höhö-funny, autsch-funny or rather hihi? Does funny even fit the brand? And if not, would it still be ok as long as it's just straightforwardly hilarious? After all, humor is debatable - or something like that. In any case, Hanspeter finds something else funny than Cheyenne. And she finds something else funny than Karen, the wife of the Chairman of the Board of Directors, who secretly approves of the headline. And the obviously humorless and in any case clueless marketing intern doesn't actually find anything funny. And I actually find almost everything funny.

The fatal question

All these questions flash through your mind in a matter of seconds. What to do - the clock is ticking! «Do you have an example that goes in the desired direction?». There it is, the only possible question at this moment, but also the fatally wrong one. You are guaranteed to come up with examples that are inappropriate, trite or contradictory à la: «Like Hornbach, but not as exaggerated» (in this case, not like Hornbach?). Above all, however, these examples nip the effect in the bud. Because funny always means a bit unexpected, surprising. So it's best not to conjure up any expectations in the first place. Or to put it another way: in a duel, you shouldn't necessarily invite your opponent to shoot first.

Stay cool, cowboys

Experienced cowboys and cowgirls know this: don't ask this question, even if it tickles your funny bone. Just stay cool, nod knowingly (even if you know you know nothing) and shoot. The die is cast, the game is on. The bullet is already on its way and will shoot the bird. Maybe. But at least it comes as a surprise!

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Should I really do it...

Because: You haven't sold anything with a few posts on social media. But you have done a lot of work. And to minimize this, it's best not to think too much about it, but to do what everyone else is doing anyway. Then you won't even notice that you don't really feel comfortable with it. Or you can do it quickly with AI - but then everyone knows straight away that you don't want to make any effort at all. So maybe it's better to leave it at that? On closer inspection, social media sounds like a pretty bad idea in terms of cost and profit. Or let's say in need of explanation. Is the effort really worth the few likes? Nah, probably not. So don't do it after all?

...or should I leave it alone?

However, the question is not whether it is worth the effort - but whether you can afford not to do it. At best, you can: for example, because you are already doing enough of this work elsewhere. Or because you would do it so thoughtlessly and lovelessly that it wouldn't speak for you. Or because it is so distressing that you would rather forego any positive effects in terms of opportunity costs. And there it is: the general excuse for all those who simply don't like doing it.

Because if you don't have a pronounced sense of mission and quickly send a few pithy posts and heart-warming comments out into the world while whistling on the train, you force yourself half-heartedly to write a few sentences that have been wrested from your last bit of energy but are still toothless and unimaginative, or an uncommented repost from the last of your energy. In return, you only get an extremely half-hearted response and feel extremely awful. No "you must" and "have the courage" slogans will help, on the contrary. The only thing that might help is finding your own voice, your own storytelling that you are comfortable with - and not trying to ape what everyone else is doing with the help of AI.

Existential hairdressing crisis

Social media urgently doesn't need any more of this same professional, characterless slop. It feels like Mani Matters' visit to the hairdresser's when he sees himself reflected endlessly in the mirrors opposite and is plunged into an acute existential crisis because of his millionfold self. Everyone tells the same story, in the same way - you can't see Mani for all the Matters.

So should you post now or not? If you're honest with yourself, you'll know. And in case of doubt: yes.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Characters were used for this that would otherwise hardly ever appear in the wreaths. Do younger generations even know that the semi-colon is a legitimate punctuation mark? Or do they think that only old people use it for their 90s emoticons? In other words, would the semicolon be threatened with extinction if it hadn't changed back in the 1980s?

Tears of emotion

But wait a minute: it wasn't actually a switch at all. The purpose of emoticons and emojis is to convey emotions that are conveyed through intonation and gestures when speaking. They therefore have a function that is not dissimilar to the good old punctuation marks. And so the semicolon has actually only consistently followed its original purpose. But not only punctuation marks, but also the style of writing and choice of words can convey a lot of what is meant. You just have to make a little effort. Just because a text doesn't contain any emojis doesn't make it unemotional. And just because it has heaps of emojis doesn't make you teary-eyed with emotion. Or with laughter. Emotions, an attitude, what is meant still comes across verbally as far as possible, with the way a sentence is constructed, which punctuation marks are used, which vocabulary is linked together and how. The content of a text is never just the content.

Pathological winking

The winking smiley, which probably saved the semicolon once, is a really stupid thing though. What's the point? Nobody winks in real life either - or if they do, it's something pathological. Is it perhaps an inner attitude that you would never show verbally, but which slips out in writing? For example: I wrote it like that (but I don't actually mean it like that, höhöhö). Ooops, the subconscious has already put in a winking smiley. And that's actually just a logical continuation of the semicolon: it's neither a period nor a comma and is simply irritating at first.

High time to become uncool

With emojis (invented by an interaction designer), however, emoticons have now largely become obsolete again - so perhaps the extinction of the semicolon will come after all, just a little later? And with emojis, it seems, a lot of other things have also become obsolete: using real words in all their facets accurately and appropriately. So it's high time they finally became uncool again. Emojis, that is. It's also high time that the semicolon became cool again.

Ah no, the semicolon was never cool, sorry. :-/

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Once upon a time, in a distant kingdom, there was a gap. It had always been there. Until the king decided it was time to fill it. So he appointed the best copywriters in his kingdom and commissioned them to do so.

The text had to meet four conditions - if it didn't, all participants would be beheaded.

The conditions were:

1. The text must summarize the merits of the king and his reign.
2. The text must be exactly 2351 characters long (including spaces).
3. The text must be professional.
4. The text must be ready by next Friday EOB.

The costs were not an issue. The copywriters were already rubbing their hands: Well then, nothing could be easier!

The creative one shouted "I have the best idea: we'll do a brainstorm workshop first!". The others nodded eagerly. The genius added: "Preferably in a particularly stimulating environment... The Caribbean!" Flights were booked, accommodation googled and suitcases packed.

At the resort on Antigua, after a long nap and a little refreshment, we got down to work: advantages were listed, arguments were put forward, pool parties were thrown, priorities were prioritized, debated, feasted on, discarded and everything started all over again. Suddenly, the dutiful one shouts with eyes wide open: "It's already Thursday evening! We have to get to work on the text now!" At this point, the creative felt her work was more than done. The poetic one talked her way out of it: "I'm great at finishing, but someone else has to write the text first." The perfectionist added: "I'm unbeatable at proofreading, so the text should come to me last." The conceptualist exclaimed: "Maybe we should do more research!" The genius threw up his arms: "Well, I can't work under pressure anyway". Then the realist spoke up: "While you were booking the flights, I was doing research. While you were going round in endless circles, I was drafting the text. While you were avoiding work, I was polishing it. You don't even need your heads chopped off, you're already headless!"

"But is it also the best text of all time?" the creative and the genius asked maliciously in chorus. "Is it also absolutely flawless and beyond any stylistic doubt?" the perfectionist and the poet wanted to know confidently. "Well, the King thinks he's tiptop," said the Realist.

And if they haven't died, the headless lyricists still talk at length about how they once filled the king's gap.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Is anyone actually reading this?

You like to read (!) somewhere that nobody reads anymore. Newsletters, email subject lines, Insta-captions, forewords to annual reports, columns - all classics of the "nobody reads that" literature. But why is all this written anyway? Why and how much energy should be put into texts at all?

Let's try an approach to these questions. Take a text, commit to honesty and perform the "existentialist limbo":

Level 1: the functional purpose

The first question you should ask yourself is: Does the text have a functional purpose? Email subjects, disruptive texts or the foreword to the annual report would probably be surprisingly effective. They are needed, they do something, they are expected. They therefore have a right to exist.

Stage 2: the created purpose

But what about all the newsletters that clog up your mailbox every day, or this column? Their functional purpose is relatively modest. But they can have a purpose in themselves: As long as the column is entertaining or educational, it has a right to exist. As long as the newsletter fulfills a purpose, it has one. To determine this again, we move on to step 3.

Level 3: the actual created purpose

To determine whether the created purpose is really being fulfilled, we ask: Could the text be replaced by dummy text without causing major damage? That would indeed be an interesting experiment, but unfortunately no one ever dares to try it.

Hypothesis: The damage would be quite limited in many cases. If this is the case, then for texts with a purely created purpose, this means that they ultimately do not fulfill this purpose. Probably because too little energy was expended on it or because there was too little skill behind it, or both. In other words, if this column could just as well be dummy text, then it would not be entertaining enough - or educational enough - and would have no reason to exist.

Stage 4: The resources

The question of whether there should be a specific text and under what conditions would thus be roughly clarified. The question remains as to how many resources should be put into it? This can now also be deduced:

• if the text has no relevant purpose = no energy at all
• if the text fulfills a more functional purpose = little energy with a focus on more formal aspects such as text length, spelling, punctuation
• if the text fulfills a self-created purpose:
  • check whether this really, really (really!) applies (blind text test), if no = no energy
  • if yes = as much energy as necessary for this benefit to really, really (really!) materialize.

Everything clear? You're welcome.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.

Risk groups

Younger people, in acute group situations. Older people who want to prove their youth and world experience or professionals who want to give their bullshit an international touch. Furthermore: Low-status, half-strong wannabe gangsters.

Immunity

People with a genuinely English-speaking background or who have spent a long time in the English-speaking world appear to be less affected or even immune. Researchers suspect that the obvious absurdity for these people protects them and the disease therefore falls on fertile ground (so-called cringe factor).

Symptomatology

The symptoms include: Pretending that you can only think of the much cooler and obviously more appropriate English term for everything. German is perceived as a foreign body, sometimes leading to a lack of understanding of terms, difficulty finding terms, the incorrect English pronunciation of German expressions or literal translations of English phrases. In extreme cases: Complete loss of linguistic sense of taste. Making people aware of their illness can also lead to aggression and shoulder shrugging.

Variants

In addition to classic Denglish, in which English expressions are sprinkled into German sentences, there are now different variants in circulation. In "false friends", similar-sounding terms are used in English to replace German ones, but they mean something different. For example, "eventuell" is replaced by "eventually" or "bekommen" by "become", etc. This behavior ridicules those affected and can lead to social isolation in extreme cases. An older variant are pseudoanglisms: terms that do not exist in English or are understood differently than in Denglish. For example, home office, cell phone, public viewing. However, this variant is so widespread that it is no longer considered pathological. A variant that mainly affects working office gums is business English: meetingscancellen, einander alignen or ein Call vereinbaren are common examples here and underline the pseudo-importance of those affected.

Contagion

Denglish is transmitted both orally and in writing. The incubation period for initial infection lasts from a few minutes to several months, depending on exposure and adaptation pressure.

Progression and prognosis

The disease progresses gradually. Initially, denglish tends to occur in stressful situations - for example, when those affected want to appear particularly competent or youthful. Over time, however, the disease becomes chronic. If left untreated, this can lead to a progressive loss of reality, with those infected convinced that they will no longer be taken seriously without Anglicisms. The prognosis is mixed: while mild cases remain stable, severe cases can lead to irreversible language impoverishment.

Healing and prevention

A cure is considered largely impossible. Disease-delaying therapies are therefore used. These include deliberate avoidance, even in heavily contaminated environments, as well as regular consumption of German literature to maintain the immune system, conversations with people who are fluent in the language and conscious observation of one's own expression.

Outlook

Experts are watching the further spread with concern, but point to historical parallels: Every language goes through waves of attack that sooner or later die down. Whether this will also be the case with Denglish remains to be seen. At present, however, there is little to suggest that it will subside any time soon.