BookSlut wrote:

For our non-German speaking readers, let's give a little tour of what the existing names of female body parts are. I was in Berlin for about two weeks when someone informed me that the direct translation of the German for nipple was "breast wart." That is some hardcore Lutheran your-body-is-a-cesspool-even-the-parts-you-use-to-nourish-your-children shit. It just gets worse from there. What are some of the others?

Number one has to be der Scham (which also means just plain old shame) for what my picture dictionary calls "pudenda (vulva)" in English. Hence the lips of shame (Schamlippen), hair of shame (Schamhaare), area of shame (Schambereich), etc. Oh, and Scheide for vagina, literally the sheath for putting a sword into. Oh God, how hilarious, the picture dictionary calls the clitoris der Kitzler -- I always thought that was slang because it means a thing that tickles or thing for tickling.

My dictionaries tell me this Scham thing comes from the fact that we cover our genitals. German doesn't use Latin medical terms like English, so things often come across as rather blunt to English-speaking (or listening) ears -- the uterus is the Gebärmutter or something like "birthing mother" and the ovaries are Eierstöcke or egg-sticks (possibly egg-stocks, etymologically). Then there's the Muttermund for the uterine orifice -- one of those things you only know you have when you get pregnant, and the image of it opening to spit out the baby is, ummm...

You have the same bluntness with illnesses too, so tonsilitis is Mandelentzündung or swollen tonsils, pancreatitis is Bauchspeicheldrüsenentzündung or swelling of the gland that makes stomach-spit, etc. But somehow that's not so burdened with body hate.