We Germans may have a lot of anti-American prejudices, but we love using Anglicisms. “Public Viewing” is one of them, and now that the Euro 2008 ( = European Soccer Championship 2008) is approaching a very important one. Maybe I should rather say a Pseudo-Anglicism. Because when we use it we do not think of the ritual public viewing of the corpse as a central part of the funeral process. No! It is about having lots of fun watching a soccer game together with other soccer fans on giant screens.
But there are also Germans opposed to using too many Anglicisms, so yesterday on the radio the question was asked whether there was no appropriate German expression for: “Public Viewing”. I was LOL when I heard one of the listeners saying: “I think Public Viewing is an appropriate expression and if we keep using it, there is at least something British remaining in the Euro!”
To understand the joke you have to know that the British team did not qualify for the Euro. Actually, I wonder whether British soccer fans (like the one at the hotel with too many Germans) are now going to ask for damages. After all they might have to watch the German team up to the finals ;-)