(Article) "Warum ich die deutsche Sprache liebe" (or "Why I love German")...

"Guten Tag, Frau Schmidt. Wie geht es Ihnen?"
"Gut, Herr Müller. Und Ihnen?"
"Danke. Sehr gut." This is how you learned German. Then you moved to Germany, only to discover that the conversations you practiced in your language class made you sound like a 1950s B-movie. And that some of the most common vernacular didn't even appear in your textbook.
We present here a highly selective compendium of everyday phrases meant to shed some light on the workings of the German language and the mindset of its native speakers.

Aber hallo, du: In the last decade or so, the word "hello" has taken on added meaning in the United States, namely, as a cry calling attention to some egregious moment of third-party stupidity. "She thought Oprah was a health food. HELL-oh!" What once was a mere greeting is now a wake-up call for the reality-impaired. The German hallo! has always served this clarion purpose in its primary sense, often bellowed down the street after the idiot who just left his car keys at the check-out counter.
Similarly, Aber hallo, du! is a reply to the obvious roughly comparable to "You can say that again!" or "And how!" Did they celebrate after winning the lottery? Aber hallo, du! As its pronoun suggests, however, this is only an appropriate response to intimates or in informal settings. The polite Aber hallo, Sie! is socially schizophrenic and a major faux pas -- and thus has no home in the national lexicon.

die Sau: Literally "the sow," a mythical and popular beast. When "let out" from her restraining pen she is capable of amazing feats, many of them involving alcohol and loud music. She is the emblem of all barnyard tendencies. Why she should embody the baser instincts while her neighbor, das Schwein, should bring luck remains a lexical puzzle. You may poke fun, but do it from a distance.

Spanferkel: "Suckling pig" and in German it sounds as cute as it looks.

baaa: A noise, not a word. Not the bleating of a sheep, but a resonating vocal explosion located about half-way between a slug in the gut and the yogi's "om." In childhood, this is how you reacted when the fat water balloon you launched squarely hit your target's head. In adulthood, it's for when your favorite mutual fund doubles in value.
Schnickschnack: A case where German frolics a bit, as it should, since here we have a word for life's bells and whistles, the little extras that make a pleasing difference: the chochkas on the breakfront, the cool gadget in the new car.

Er grüsst nicht: There's a certain someone, male, let's say, coworker, neighbor or total stranger. You see him often, maybe you've even been introduced. Oddly, though, when approached from a distance, he doesn't say "hello." He doesn't avoid contact, but doesn't seek it out, either. The commuter train, the dog run in the park, the office hallway: These are the venues where you feel invisible despite your best efforts at amiability. At first you may have raised a hand in greeting, but it went unseen or was met with a blank stare. You have since become more reserved. Then annoyed. Then angry. What's his problem? Would it kill him to say Guten Tag? Or crack a smile? What is it? Willful blindness? Preternatural associability? Dauer-bad hair day? You may ruminate and reflect as long as you like, but all suspicions remain pure conjecture. The long and the short of it is: Er grüsst nicht.

Un-: This is a prefix that also shifts the German language massively into reverse. Unglück is not just the opposite of Glück, or luck, it's a tragic accident. Unwetter is not simply bad weather, its the storm that takes the roof off your house. Unwort, in turn, is the word that dares not speak its own name.