I had an incident in November last year when I was queuing in my local COOP in Basel. A mum in front of me was with her 2 boys, she lives locally and the elder of the 2 is about 7 and has a physical and mental disability so is in a buggy. The younger boy was playing up as he wanted an ice cream and I could see the mum was struggling a little bit, so as she only had 2 cartons of milk and I had a basket full of things I asked it she’d like to go in front of me.
Next thing I had an older guy behind me start haranguing me in German about allowing her to go in front and I managed to reply about the lady only buying milk and having 2 children with her, after that I apologised and said my German wasn’t that good (I can read German but don’t speak it well). As he only had one item I also asked if he would like to go before me. The reply I got in very good English was “oh you English, you all come to this country but you don’t understand the rules or abide by them and rules have to be kept”. A bit of a red rag to a bull there with me being Scottish so I replied “firstly, I am from Scotland and you do not insult a Scottish person by referring to them as English” (for the record I’m not bothered as OH is English and my dad was Northern Irish). His retort was “so I am being racist to a Scottish person then, I don’t care”.
By this point a young guy in the queue stepped out and said to this man “what is your problem, this lady is just trying to do her shopping” then a woman stepped out of the queue, put her hand on my shoulder and said she hoped I didn’t think this man was representative of Swiss people and he should be ashamed. I have to admit it did shake me up a bit as I’d never encountered anything like that before in the 8 years I’d been here and it came out of the blue, but I eventually thought it wasn’t worth worrying about as we’ll be leaving once OH has retired (could be end of this year or early next year).
And here was me thinking I was just being polite by asking a lady struggling with 2 kids if she’s like to be served first (she thanked me afterwards btw). It’s something I don’t think twice about when I’m in Scotland.
“kenn I Di?” You ask… “Noi? Dann Kummere Di um dei oigne Scheiß!” And if that doesn’t work a short, straight to the point: “Verpiß Dich Alter.” Will shut anybody up.
Remember to look at them from head to toe and sneer.
I wonder why swearing isn’t included in any B1 and B2 language learning, would certainly be useful.
Oh yeah. The most dangerous place to be is in a long line at a Swiss supermarket checkout and another cashier suddenly opens. People have lost eyes and limbs.
If you haven’t evaluated the peak queue capacity tipping point and aren’t loitering around a soon-to-be-opened checkout desk in readiness, are you even Swiss?
Telling him he was raised by wolves might actually be an unearned compliment you could give him. Wolves are dignified, disciplined, and frankly more pleasant creatures. They don’t go around harassing others for fun or exterminating entire species just because they feel inconvenienced.
If you really want to make him squirm, you should ask ‘were you raised by a bunch of cranky, trigger-happy hunters? That would really explain your lack of manners.’ … considering how determined they are to exterminate every last wolf in the region.
Unfortunately, I’m far too shy and honestly too wary to ever confront these types of individuals… the kind who wield their overblown sense of entitlement as if it were a birthright. But if I ever find my courage, I’d love to see the look on their faces.
You ladies might like to use “Schlappschwanz” in an appropriate situation. I have tried “floppy dick” in English, bit I must admit the effect was limited.
My, english, humorous and sadly missed dad would come over to Basel to visit and sit on the tram pointing at ‘older folk’ and say to me “He’s Swiss”… “She’s definitely Swiss”… when asked why he was saying that, his reply… “Most miserable buggers I’ve ever met”
so I replied “firstly, I am from Scotland and you do not insult a Scottish person by referring to them as English” (for the record I’m not bothered as OH is English and my dad was Northern Irish). His retort was “so I am being racist to a Scottish person then, I don’t care”.