At first I thought it was a practical joke. I thought, that cannot possibly be a word in German. Or in Denglish, I should say. But I hear it more and more often in Berlin and each and every time it is said with a straight face as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The word is ‘vip’. It rhymes with ‘tip’ and ‘nip’ and ‘sip’ and and and… What it means is V.I.P. In this case the English abbreviation has been adopted into German and turned into a word in the process. It is a word that does not make any sense but no one around here seems to notice that fact.
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Hi Sarah
When I was still living in Berlin, those little four-poster garden pavilions were just coming into fashion – under the name of “Vip-Zelt”. When I first heard it, I was trying to figure out what was so wobbly about them (I heard it as Wippzelt!) … These days, interestingly, they have been demoted to “Prol-Zelt” (or so I’ve been told…).
Best wishes
Betti