Volleyball

2009 Champions - the Spiked Punches,
(non-Austrian)

I consider it a major strike of luck that one of the only team sports I'm even remotely capable of playing is also among the most popular here in Austria.  Since October I've been expanding the international profile of 2009 Brown University P.E. Low Division Intramural Volleyball Champions 'The Spiked Punches' (see right) by playing with my school's team almost every Wednesday.

The older players are mostly quite talented and an extremely high percentage of the students (in comparison to volleyball teams in American high schools, at least) take part.  Volleyball, in general, is taken much more seriously here than it is in America, where it's much more likely to be played one-handed by beer-holding old men in their backyards between a round of horseshoes and seconds at the grill.  In fact, the nearby town of Amstetten (population: 23,000) even has its own professional volleyball club - consisting of at least 25% unemployed American volleyball stars.  Other similar towns (or metropolises, depending on your point-of-view) also have professional teams that compete with each other and, somehow, make money out of the arrangement.   

But back in the small time racket, I've been enjoying our weekly practices despite embarrassing myself at times by grossly misunderstanding information, rules, and gender-specific instructions.  The local dialect, always difficult for me to understand, becomes even more difficult to understand when it's screamed by enthused and competitive sixteen year-olds on the court.

 

I have, however, learned some fun and useful volleyball vocabulary*:

Meine Schuld - my fault

Deine Schuld - your fault

Schlagen - to serve (to hit)

Aufspielen - to set
Netz - net

Wie steht's? - what's the score?

Out - out

In - in

Spike - spike

Block - block

English has, apparently, influenced the game's terminology abroad.

Although it`s been too cold for outdoor/beach volleyball for some time, I hear that my town has a 3x3 snow volleyball tournament planned for February.  More on that later...

*Note: German volleyball vocabulary is, in fact, only useful for playing volleyball in a German-speaking country.  For something actually useful, click here.

You May Care, But It's Sausage to Me!

Sausages in Austria do not usually
have legs, clothing, or, notably,
emotions.

One of the most useful and versatile words that I've learned in Austrian dialect thus far is Wurst.  As you might guess, the word literally means "sausage," yet in Austria it is often used to communicate that the speaker doesn't care or doesn't know about a given topic or question.

Although I knew upon arrival that Austrians liked their sausages, it took me several weeks to realize why Austrians were always responding to my yes/no questions with the same cryptic reply - "sausage." 

According to unverified internet etymologies, this peculiar use of "sausage" has several conceivable origins.  Theory One states that the symmetry of sausages symbolizes one end of an issue being equal to the other.  Theory Two states that, because sausages are made of left-over or otherwise useless meats, "sausage" became an appropriate verbal response to anything you just don't know what to do with.  Theory Three states Austrians are always thinking about sausages, so when they are at a loss they simply say "sausage."

In order to insert this practical use of "sausage" into your English lexicon, here are some examples of its effective use:

In a restaurant:
Hostess: Smoking or non-smoking, sir?
You: Sausage.
Hostess: Thank you for being flexible.

Going Out:
You: What should I wear tonight, pants or a skirt?
A Friend: Mmm, sausage.
You: Yeah, I guess you're right.

On an airplane:
Flight Attendant: Would you prefer the fish or the beef for dinner?
You: Sausage.
Flight Attendant: And to drink?.
You: Also sausage.

Unfortunately my blog, like everything has an end. Only the sausage has two.  Wurst.

Vorarlberg: Austria's Rhode Island



Vorarlberg, as Rudolph's Red Nose



As I was walking past a smokey disco (past, not in) here in Waidhofen last night, a pair of youngsters decided to heckle me.  This is not uncommom in Austria, as most people can somehow tell that I am not Austrian.  Last night, however, I was not accused of being an American, but rather something much worse - a Vorarlberger.

Vorarlberg is Austria's smallest province, or Bundesland, and Austrians are not fond of it.  

Vorarlbergers - all 300,000 of them - speak a dialect much closer to Swiss German than Austro-Bavarian German and thus they are the butt of many jokes.  My theory is that Austrians are so insecure about their peculiar form of speaking (which is often ridiculed by our lederhosen-ed neighbors to the north) that they are channeling their linguistic self-doubt onto poor, helpless Vorarlberg. 





Austria, as Schnitzel



Although I've yet to visit this tiny bubble on the schnitzel of the Austrian Republic, I am sympathetic to their plight, having spent four years in RI - the smallest, pimpliest state in the US.  Despite their charms, neither of them really belongs; 80% of Vorarlberg voted against becoming part of Austria in the wake of WWI and Rhode Island barely ratified the Constitution.  Perhaps I'm a hopeless fan of the underdog, but I would be proud to be accussed of coming from either the tiny geographic footnote that is Rhode Island or the historical anomaly that is Vorarlberg.