junk
The junk (also clutter ) is a general term in German colloquial language for unimportant or inferior small parts and matters, as well as for a jumble of many difficult to distinguish things. In Austria the name Kramuri is also used . From this a small trader is called a shopkeeper . In the livestock sector, the term Kram also stands for the innards of a slaughtered animal.
Etymology and Distribution
The word Kram is derived from ahd. Chrâm , the origin of which is unclear; the basic relationship with altslaw. gramŭ to Greek καπηλειω “to offer (a commodity)” can only be assumed. However, it can be assumed that the meaning "tent roof" was the connecting element early on: the first reliable source mentions mhd. Krâm as the tent cover or a stretched cloth. This then stood pars pro toto for the entire sales tent of a retailer , ultimately only for its goods.
The word was initially only borrowed into Middle Dutch as craem and is still used today in New Dutch as kraam . The influence of German merchants in the Middle Ages is reflected in the variety of acquisitions: it was in numerous Nordic - Old North. , Iceland. , dan. , Norway. and Swedish kram - and Slavic languages - Polish kram , Czech, krám , illyr. or alban. krama , sorb. klamy , lit. krómas - transported. In this context, the Wendish expression klamy , which is in the plural and indicates that we are dealing with many things at the same time, is important.
Importance in commerce
The canvas with the name Kram originally protected the merchandise of traveling traders. Your junk goods were considered to be of high quality and considered to be kræmel , i. H. "Gift", because it did not correspond to the conventional range, but usually comprised high-end goods or products from long-distance trade with the Orient , e.g. B. silk fabrics. The junk dealers enjoyed social esteem, which is also reflected in the term Krâmermeister , which means the head of a professional guild that has continued to exist .
In the late Middle Ages, the warehouse of pharmacies and finally the pharmacy itself was also referred to as krām (e) . In literary terms, the term is reflected in the Carmina Burana , as in the song of Mary Magdalene when buying an ointment it says:
"Chramer, gip the varwe me
the min wengel roete
so that I need the young man
thanks to the love for me."
From the Kramerei or general store the job titles and surnames then formed Kramer and Kramer . The traders of large goods such as wood or cattle - the words stand for a quantity concept - were referred to as menger . A small, cramped sales shop with a wide range of products, even if it is in a building, is often referred to as a general store .
As early as the early 14th century , these shops are proven to be a permanent fixture on city markets, as the Lübeck street names Dunkler Krambuden , Enger Krambuden and Weiter Krambuden attest. Speak of the social rank of the junk dealer z. B. the Krameramtsstuben in Hamburg's Neustadt district.
Negative connotation
Regardless of the actual meaning, a negative connotation of junk spread as early as the 16th century . As junk or "shopkeeping" in the sense of a multitude of superfluous things, circumstance hustle and bustle was now also described in the social sense, the "circumstance shopkeeping". At the latest in the 18th century the modern meaning gained acceptance. The lexical entry at Johann Georg Krünitz already shows the importance of the emerging retail trade .
“The trade in details, in small things, in the same way the trade in insignificant things; the junk trade, the shopkeeper trade, the shopkeeper, the trade in hand purchases, retail trade, and with cutting goods the cutting, the trading in the cutting, as well as with counting goods the piece sale, Fr. Détail, that kind of trade because the goods are sold not only as a whole, but also according to the yard, according to the pound, according to the mutt, or according to the fourth, the jug and their smaller sections, or according to individual items (...). "
With the continued tendency to retailers over the general store of the stuff was finally only perceived negatively. The trade in colonial goods , which originally made up the stuff, could no longer save the term.
Idioms
- the cubit is longer than the stuff (you're impoverished, can't keep up with an assortment)
- Secretive (someone who doesn't reveal everything)
- rummaging around (looking haphazardly between things)
- Chandler soul (someone who trades and haggles)
- to throw away the stuff (to give up a useless thing)
- he can pack his stuff (is no longer welcome here, has no chance here)
- not come along with such stuff (talking nonsense, arguing with trivialities)
- it doesn't fit my stuff (in the assortment)
- Circumstance or trivial bother (make unnecessary inconvenience)
- Odds and ends (word reinforcement for useless, disordered things)
Kram as a place name (originated from Krammarkt as a location)
swell
- ^ A b Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German Dictionary . Leipzig 1854-1960. Vol. 11, Col. 1985
- ^ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German Dictionary . Leipzig 1854-1960. Vol. 11, Col. 1986
- ↑ a b c d Matthias Lexer: Middle High German pocket dictionary. Last hand edition . Leipzig 1885. p. 132
- ^ Johann Georg Krünitz: Economic Encyclopedia or general system of the state, city, house and agriculture . Berlin 1773-1858. Vol. 46, p. 713
- ↑ Dieter Lehmann: Two medical prescription books of the 15th century from the Upper Rhine. Part I: Text and Glossary. Horst Wellm, Pattensen / Han. 1985, now at Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg (= Würzburg medical-historical research , 34), ISBN 3-921456-63-0 , p. 207.
- ↑ Quoted from www.martinschlu.de , accessed March 3, 2007
- ^ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German Dictionary . Leipzig 1854-1960. Vol. 11, Col. 1999
- ↑ Max Hoffmann: The streets of the city of Lübeck . In: Zeitschrift des Verein für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 11 (1909), Issue 3, pp. 215-292: 1307 mentioned in a document as platea institorum . P. 261
- ^ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German Dictionary . Leipzig 1854-1960. Vol. 11, Col. 1991 f.
- ^ Johann Georg Krünitz: Economic Encyclopedia or general system of the state, city, house and agriculture . Berlin 1773-1858. Vol. 46, p. 702
