A Dictionary Headed For die Bestsellerliste

THE traveler leaving his plane at Munich airport may well wonder what country he is visiting. A helpful Groundhostess will guide den Globetrotter to cinem Duty Free Shop, where he can use den Travelerscheck. His wife will learn of a nearby Beauty farm, where das Glamourgirl can enjoy das Bodybuilding or ein Facelift. On her way back, she will be able to do some one-stop-shopping in dem Basementstore or in dem Supermarket. While she is occupied, her husband, if he happens to be ein Playboy or ein Ladykiller, may have einen Long-drink Extra Dry and chase eine Sexbombe.

In France, the late Charles de Gaulle made every effort to rid the language of franglais expressions, with only mixed success. The Germans are hesitant to embark on a similar campaign of linguistic purification. One reason is that Hitler tried to purge German of all non-Teutonic expressions, and an attempt today might smack of Nazism.

The result is that German has become peppered with what might be called deutschlisch words and phrases. Many of the hybrid words come from the aeronautic or computer fields, but many more are general terms like die Eskalation, die Antibabypille, der Selfmademan and der Allroundman.

At eine Cocktailparty in Munich two years ago, a bookseller complained about the prevalence of Americanisms to Fritz Neske, an author, and his wife Ingeborg, a linguist. The Neskes decided to catalogue the terms that had become common. Their recently published Dictionary of English and American Expressions in German (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 314 pages; $1.85) contains 3.000 of them. Sales of the dictionary have been brisk, even though it has not yet made die Bestsellerliste.

As the Neskes' book attempts to explain Americanisms to Germans, a forthcoming 50-page handbook put out by Bristol's Abson Press will try to make Briticisms comprehensible to Americans, and Americanisms to Britons. The glossary, which has more than 200 Americanisms, advises the newly arrived American housewife that when she goes shopping for diapers, a baby carriage, a flashlight and a vacuum cleaner, she should ask for nappies, a pram, a torch and a hoover. The housewife will find that while there are no eggplants or zucchini in the food stores, aubergines and courgettes taste exactly like them. If she finds it all too baffling and wants to return home, no moving van will pull up to her front door, but a pantechnicon will.

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