“Well I really need to get my handy sorted, and get a flat rate.”

You might reckon that I am waffling or your might not even be fazed by this.

Maybe the former because you are not familiar with denglisch But when you have been in another country for some while you end up getting what we coin in the biz “language interference”. And this only really creeps into your lingo when you get to a certain level in a language, or? This tag question is common amongst English ex-pats and in order to avoid it I deliberately started using the more northern, innit. Oder (or) and innit have the same multi use purpose and maybe slightly goes towards explaining the tendency for ex-pats to slip into this usage. It is especially common amongst language teachers cause we tend to put this kind of concept under microscopic scrutiny.

The running joke amongst us goes such that “It is better to get a gift in English than German”.

This false friend (falscher Freund) is one of oddles that cause problems. 
The handy thing is very common as it is such a practical word to use for the gadget. Unlike when a student of mine described his job as a “depaneler” which to anyone would seem to be a guy who takes off panels from vehicles in a garage. So ya may be shocked and flabbergasted to hear he worked for a telecommunications company dividing sheets of material into panels. Jobs are a mind-field for misunderstandings and just to know what the job of a “Network Architecture & Design Global Transport Planning Global Network Planning” or Fachabteilungsleiter “Kernenergieanlagentechikeraufsichtsführender Werkmeister” is takes a degree in linguistics us average laypeople just don´t have. The work world seems to have both natives and ex-pats using a mish mash of hashed up nonsense. Maybe we should “outgesourct” our job descriptions.

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