There are many other examples of Helvetisms, metaphors and misunderstandings on this website.
Some thoughts from a Swiss German: Dialect differences are very rarely obstacles to communication between Swiss Germans of different dialects. ...also because locals with a special dialect (Walliserdeutsch, Senslerdeutsch) manage to weaken its uniqueness when talking to Swiss Germans of other provenience. The diglossia is a problem for French Swiss because the majority of them understands High German much better than Swiss German. It's fun/interesting to identify the provenience of your countrymen by canton after a few sentences. (Somebody even built a pretty impressive locator tool ) There is no standard Swiss German. A mix of Swiss German dialects is sometimes jokingly called "Bahnhofbuffet-Olten-Dialekt" because this known restaurant is regularly used for meetings of a variety of organisations. The borders in the diglossia aren't set in stone. Especially younger people write SMS/text messages, emails and letters in their Dialect. Swiss "High German" isn't exactly the same than German "High German" because of variations in vocabulary, called Helvetism s. Vocabulary aside, the different use of past tenses and some metaphors is another characteristic that sometimes allows a German to spot a text written by a Swiss. Some Swiss Germans apparently get a bit embarrassed when talking to a German in High German, because although Germany isn't free of local dialects its citizens usually manage better to get rid of their dialects and accents. It is a subject of discussion to which extent this happens, with some Germans who regularly encounter this problem on one side, and Swiss who don't hesitate to speak High German on the other. Here 's an example of a Swiss metaphor that went completely over the head of the German TV audience when used by a well-known Swiss ex football referee: "Dass es kein Offside war, das schleckt keine Geiss weg." = No goat licks away that this wasn't an offside = It's an undisputable fact that this wasn't an offside.