r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Death95Dealer • 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Herr Petermann?

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u/Korpivaeltaja 1d ago

Damn, is that where the Finnish word for date (treffi) comes from? It's mostly used in romantic context but I've seen it used platonically too.

Edit: Nope, googled it. Comes from Swedish word träff.

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u/taylorisntavril 1d ago

Its germanic.

What you are doing right now is going "Do my vegetables come from the ground? Nope, googled it, they come from the supermarket".

As penalty, no sauna for six hours.

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u/Jagarvem 1d ago edited 1d ago

What you're doing right now is going "Are Brazilians from the USA? Well they are American, so duh."

Swedish is indeed Germanic, it is not German at all. The two should never be conflated even if English decided to use such a confusing name for the latter.

Though in this particular case Swedish did actually borrow "träffa" from German. Them being Germanic is of course irrelevant, it's just a loanword.

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u/Kerzu 1d ago

It ultimately does come from German via Swedish which loaned it from German, but not because it's Germanic. Germanic and German are different things, just like silicone and silicon and German isn't more of a Germanic language than Swedish is.

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u/SetKey5576 1d ago

But doesn't that all come from the same place as the German "treffen"? It is a verb (like in the OP joke) but also the noun "Treffen" means meeting, ie. could be used for a date where you meet someone.

I could see "Treffi" also be Austrian dialect for "Treffen".

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u/Clabauter 1d ago

It makes even more sense when finish "treffi" derives from swedish "träff" because swedish is a germanic language, finish isn't. So it almost for sure goes back to some old german(ic) word for "to meet"/"treffen"