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So I just finished playing (in English translation) the Deponia trilogy of adventure games by German company Daedalic Entertainment. In the course of the game, several characters at various points in the game use the expression "And how!" as an emphatic yes, similar to French "mais oui." I can't say I've ever heard this particular idiom in English; is this a calque of a German expression or is it an English idiom I'm just not familiar with (or, of course, both)?

It's an English idiom all right. No idea of its etymology, but my understanding of its meaning (it is a bit archaic probs??) is that you respond with it to e.g. the description of a person in agreement with the description, and so it's probably linked to the exclamatory 'how good is he'???

not sure though because I'd never use it myself, I don't think.

The OED describes it as "orig. US" and the first quote (from 1865) makes the connexion to German explicit:

‘And how?’ as the Germans say (Americanicé—— ‘You'd better believe it!’).

Thanks, I'd never heard the expression before--but if it's roots are in German, then that would make sense that it would get used in the (I believe in-house) translation of a German game. And its usage does seem to match what you described, as at least three of its uses were in response to variants of the question, "Are you hungry/thirsty/tired?"

Zaarin wrote:Thanks, I'd never heard the expression before--but if it's roots are in German, then that would make sense that it would get used in the (I believe in-house) translation of a German game. And its usage does seem to match what you described, as at least three of its uses were in response to variants of the question, "Are you hungry/thirsty/tired?"

The funny thing is there's often a sort of hypercorrection that takes hold in these situations. That is, you're so conscious of the pitfalls of translating too literally that when you come across an expression that too neatly matches your native language, you distrust it. I have had German-speakers profess disbelief that monolingual Americans commonly say "Gesundheit" and question if my use of "How so?" is a Germanicism. This leads me to suspect they would avoid using these expressions in their own speech.

Dutch has exactly the same: en hoe!. My wild guess is that this expression originated in German, English and Dutch (and why not Frisian and Scandinavic languages too?) synchronically, or it was copied over the centuries of mutual contact between the Germanic speaking peoples.

Basically what Yng said:

"Is he badass?" or "He is badass." "And how (badass he is)!"

Meaning not just "yes," but "yes beyond expectation."

This expression seems like it is falling out of fashion in English though, at least among people around me. I don't recall the last time I actually heard someone say it.

clawgrip wrote:This expression seems like it is falling out of fashion in English though, at least among people around me. I don't recall the last time I actually heard someone say it.

Which would probably explain why I'd never heard it before.

Yeah: it makes me think of 40's-50's era shows, guys with oiled hair and fedoras.

French has exactly the same idiom: Et comment !, along with the similar Et comment donc and Mais comment donc
I'd say it's definitely out of fashion.

Yagia wrote:Dutch has exactly the same: en hoe!. My wild guess is that this expression originated in German, English and Dutch (and why not Frisian and Scandinavic languages too?) synchronically, or it was copied over the centuries of mutual contact between the Germanic speaking peoples.

Not in Swedish at least.

I think I've heard it mostly on TV, not many times from people (when I was in school, perhaps).

I have used it myself a couple of times, but it's one of those things that, when you use it, no one responds with recognition, so I don't bother using it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've used it before in a kind of joking way and was not understood.

I've definitely heard it used, and I've probably used it myself, but I agree that it's not very common. It strikes me as the kind of thing that might still get used in tv commercials; commercial-ese sometimes seems to use turns of phrase that sound a bit archaic or otherwise "off."

Still, as far as off-key translations go, that one's not so bad. I still boggle at the fact that the Naruto localization team felt it was appropriate to render "Dattebayo!" as "believe it!" in all of the titular character's lines.

Sakir wrote:Yeah: it makes me think of 40's-50's era shows, guys with oiled hair and fedoras.

Yeah, a Google Books search of "and how !" shows a pretty marked decline after the middle of the century:

http://googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=us&q=28655270

Edit: I hadn't realized that Google itself allowed searches including the exclamation point (which I included to ensure it was this expression rather than others where "and" and "how" happen to appear consecutively). That gives a higher resolution of the ups and downs, along with the ridiculously less useful percentage axis instead of occurences per million words.

NB this expression is still perfectly current in German so the Krautness of the game devs is still the likely cause.

But probably not the sole cause on its own. Do you think they would have still used it if they weren't able to find references to the expression in English?