Move
Up a gear (also: forking out a tooth , down a tad ) is a phrase of the German colloquial language and means " speed boost".
Related idioms
The idiom is related to having a (big, crazy, great, very beautiful) tooth / spike on it (“moving at very high speed”) and with compounds of the type Mordszahn , Affenzahn (“very high speed”) and also has the shortened ones forms down , forking ( "the driving or cruising speed increase, accelerate the trot") produced.
Origin and time of creation
In the relevant dictionaries will toothed or serrated these phrases as tooth on the ring gear of the hand throttle lever of a motor vehicle, even occasionally as a tooth on the toothed rod of the hand throttle lever older fighters interpreted.
First references are not shown in the dictionaries, but the time of origin for laying on top ("increase the speed") as a short form created from putting a tooth on top is given as early as the 1920s and for Mordszahn ("very high speed") as early as the 1930s. In deriving from the hand throttle rod of older fighter planes, the time of origin is also assumed to be in the First World War. They have become literarily tangible since the 1940s, especially with regard to motor vehicles and military aircraft.
Others
Popular scientific explanations see the origin as early as the Middle Ages and derive it from the clawed rod of a kettle hook, a so-called kettle, on which the lower hanging of the kettle around a claw (a tooth or prong ) reduces the cooking heat and thus indirectly also the cooking speed elevated. It is possible that older roots of the phrase actually exist: the popular belief has been documented since the 19th century that the arrival of a guest is announced when the kettle hook falls by a tooth by itself.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Heinz Küpper: Pons dictionary of German colloquial language , Klett-Verlag, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-12-570600-9 , p. 21 (“Affenzahn”), p. 174 (“put on it”), p. 547 ("Mordszahn"), p. 935 ("Zacken"), p. 952 ("add")
- ^ Lutz Mackensen: Quotes, sayings, proverbs. Fackelverlag, Brugg / Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-87220-332-0 , p. 228: "You think of the teeth that the hand throttle runs along" (No. 3169 on "put a tooth on", "put a tooth in")
- ↑ Heinz Küpper: Handy dictionary of German colloquial language , Claassen, Hamburg / Düsseldorf 1968, p. 472: “Taken from the hand throttle lever attached radially to the steering wheel, which was guided along the toothed surface of a segment of a circle; the closer you got to the limit of the segment, the more "great tooth" you had "
- ^ Günther Drosdowski / Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht (eds.), Der Duden. Vol. 11: Idioms and proverbial idioms: Dictionary of German Idiomatics. Dudenverlag, Mannheim a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-411-04111-0 , p. 825 (see v. "Have a tooth on it"): "This phrase probably originally referred to the locking mechanism of the hand throttle lever in the car, which was used to regulate the driving speed."
- ↑ a b Kurt Krüger-Lorenzen: German idioms and what's behind them. Vol. 3: The laughing third. Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1973, p. 237: “The reference to the gear drive of the motor brings us close to a correct explanation of the phrase, but originally this phrase comes from the aviator's language of the First World War: In the small, primitive hunting machines from 1914 the pilot, in order to accelerate, a bar with teeth on the underside. This was pressed down by a simple spring in its holder and thus held in place. If you pushed the bar forward away from you, you gave more gas, you put "one or more teeth closed". Soon after the start, which took place at full throttle, a slight throttling had to take place by "taking off the gas" to protect the engine. So when an aircraft pilot - in a dogfight, for example - flew at full throttle and also downhill (the machine "pushed"), the speeds were particularly high and the aircraft had a great tooth! ", Krüger-Lorenzen also doing the latter refers to the gearbox of the engine.
- ↑ Hans Fallada : Little man, big man - everything mixed up, or Max Schreyvogel's lust and burden of money. Rowohlt, Stuttgart a. a. 1940, p. 251: "Enthusiastic about this I put a tooth up, the speedometer pointed to the number 35".
- ↑ Fritz von Forell : Mölders and his men. Scherl, Berlin 1941, p. 101: "... because he completely forgot to shoot and roared away through the Rhine Valley with an 'Affenzahn'." - Otto Paust (Ed., On behalf of the Wehrmacht High Command): Comradeship is stronger als der Tod , Limpert, Berlin 1943, p. 246: "In the 'Affenzahn' Bernd H. steers the He down in a steep curve". - Heinz Jacks: Destroyer hostile: War voyages between the Arctic Ocean and Biscaya. Mittler, Berlin 1943, p. 140: “Had a wild tooth, the dashing dog!” - Heinz Pape: Panzerflieger über dem Balkans , Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1943, p. 110: “Rosinski pushes the machine, and with a monkey tooth it's going down. "
- ↑ Klaus Gorzny: Ruhr locks. Castles, palaces and aristocratic residences along the Ruhr. Verlag Piccolo, Marl 2002, ISBN 3-9801776-7-X , in the directory “ Redewendung aus Medieval Sprachgebrauch” p. 172 ( PDF ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ): “In the open chimneys there was generally a rod with a jagged flat iron hanging down (kettle hook). On this pots were hung over the open fire, in which the food cooked. If it should go faster because the landlord came to eat earlier than expected, the pot was hung one or more prongs lower to speed up the cooking process. So you had added a tooth (spike). "
- ↑ Olga Ejikhine: Taken literally: The phrasebook through the world of idioms. Indigo, Utrecht 2005, p. V. “To put a tooth”: “In the past, the pot hung on a kind of saw comb on the fireplace in the house. If the pot was hung down, the food was ready faster. "
- ↑ Ludwig Strackerjan: Superstitions and Legends from the Duchy of Oldenburg , Vol. 1, Oldenburg 1867, p. 34.
