Aus dem Haus
The Sprudel Question
In between providing me with blankets and reading material and feeding me soggy vegetables in inidentifiable sauce, the lovely Lufthansa lady who looked after me for 10 hours sometime during the last 48 also offered me many a drink. Being a responsible air traveller, I stayed hydrated with lots of oxygen accompanied by 2 hydrogen atoms (I mean water of course!). I was oh-so-politely asked once if I wanted my water “mit oder ohne Sprudel“. The next time I was asked if I wanted it “prickelnd“. Again I was asked, but this time it was all about “Kohlensäure“. Oh Germany, why must you confuse with your manifold words for fizz?
In another funny fizz tale, on a different Lufthansa flight last year, the flight attendant spoke to me in English and asked me if I wanted my water “with sprinkles”. How cute! Not wanting water with candy sprinkled on the top, I politely declined.
Stay tuned for a New Zealand update… (yep, there are still lots of sheep!)
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2 comments for “The Sprudel Question”
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“Sprudel” is a colloquial term. It does not boost my confidence in the Lufthansa hearing that they speak like that. The polite and technical term in question would be “Kohlensäure”.
Actually, at least where I come from, “Sprudel” denotes the whole beverage - water plus carbon dioxide for the sparkling.
The English speaking world as a whole (that means US-EN, UK-EN, NZ-EN,…) has a lot of terms for mineral water, too. with gas/without gas, sparkling water, mineral water, soda*,fizzy water,…
*Soda: This was actually quite hilarious and it is also one of those stories that only happen on airplanes. I was flying to SFO via LHR - the flight operator obviously being British Airways. When I was on my flight from LHR to SFO I was already in that typical US Vacation mood and ordered a soda. The flight attendant replied “still or carbonated water” and I had to start laughing and so did the flight attendant after I had explained that I actually wanted a Dr Pepper or something like that. Haha. It was funny at the time
PLUS, I really like the British accent, therefore I just have to fly with BA once again. And I want to see Terminal 5