On 25/03/2012 22:57, geoff wrote:
In message , Andy Champ
writes
On 24/03/2012 13:24, geoff wrote:

Another way of selling them would be to list on the box, "Can also be
used to destroy unwanted CDs".

Ever seen such inclusion listed?

OK - blööööde trottel

you say you lived in germany. What is a bottle opener called?

Flaschenöffner.

Z.b.

http://www.ostarrichi.org/woerterbuch.html?wort=1851v

cough That says the Austrians think the Russians came up with the
term. And that in German it's called "Flaschenöffner" while in
Austrian _only_ it's "Siebzehner".

Whatever, it was the first reference I found

It was in common usage when I lived there


But then, these are the guys that confused my wife by having earth
apples on the menu.

Was that in Bavaria ?

In Franconia they are called earth berries



Wien. I speak hardly any German, so I'm used to guessing; when it said
"Erdäpfel" I guessed it was something like the Dutch "Aardappel". My
polyglot wife insisted on asking the waiter.

Today I asked one of my colleagues about this, knowing he's been a bit
of a drinker in his past, and lived in Germany. He'd never heard of the
Siebzehner term, and all unprompted said "We used to open them with
lighters"!

Andy