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I hope this is the right place to post this question. I play with a german-style brass band and one of our guys just did an arrangement of a tune called "Spannemänner". I can not figure out what the word actually means. Not even a native German speaker is sure of its meaning. I've looked in good German-English dictionaries and asked several fluent german-speakers. I'm not looking for a translation of the 2 parts of the word but rather what it means in common speech, how its used. Can anyone on this board either answer this question or point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance.

Pete

"Spanne" is also an old length of measure in Germany, meaning about 8"-10" or one handbreadth.
"Spannemänner" could mean very small people, gnomes.
Does that make sense?

It may mean a man who reaches, as in the motorcycle page at the link below, or reaching for the brass ring on a carousel. Just a wild guess.

http://home.fotocommunity.de/tobiasl./i ... d=14340112" target="_blank

TO "spannen" means to make something tight or to draw out. A colleague of mine and I believe it is the name os a specific job a say a factory. Männer is just plural of man or one who does. SO the word could mean a group of people who tighten things.

Also a Spanner is a "peeping tom" so one could deduce something form that if they were so inclined.
A

I just realized you weren't looking for me to break the word down. Sorry.... I would say to use the translation in an alliterated sentance one could say:

Call the "Spannemänner" my lathe is too loose!

Spannemänner is a word I don’t remember having seen before.

Google has 38 entries, which is very few for a word supposed to be in general usage. Most even appear to be related to this said piece of music.

The reference to motorcycle sidecar racing appears valid. I don’t know the English term, but that human balancer in my language is called sandsæk (= sand bag).

Another context uses Spannemänner as the term for those prompting and correcting somebody trying to make a speech in a dialect unknown to him.

And then the term of Spannemänner also appears in a context where I have zero experience: the brothel environment. Apparently those getting high on looking at others taking action.

Klaus

imperialbari wrote: And then the term of Spannemänner also appears in a context where I have zero experience: the brothel environment. Apparently those getting high on looking at others taking action.

A voyeur. I don't know if that's what is meant, but it's the most amusing answer so far.

I hate the direction this takes, but my interest for German may be well known, as I lived in that country from 1947 through 1958. Some dialects are tough, but I thought I understood high German and its closest derivates pretty well. I often heard the term Spanner and really thought it meant a guy spending too much time on a park bench drinking too much beer. And now this comes up when translating a bit forth and back:

http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=wLMD ... tr=0x28001

Google translates "SpanneMänner" as "Men's Range".

Because it splits the word and considers the second part being a genitive, which it is not.

Google translation is very useful. If one has no better form of entertainment.

Klaus

The word doesn't exist in the common german language (hochdeutsch). It could be a word out of a regional dialect, but i don't have any reliable source of what it could mean. My wife, with origins from southern germany, also doesn't know it.

Gerd

tubajazzo wrote:The word doesn't exist in the common german language (hochdeutsch). It could be a word out of a regional dialect, but i don't have any reliable source of what it could mean. My wife, with origins from southern germany, also doesn't know it.

Gerd

The word Spannemänner definitely is not very commonly documented on the web. However it must be in some folksy usage, when it is associated with a folksy piece of music.

It is the plural of Spannemann. Still not a very common word with only 8100 Google hits. Still too many to read through. Spannemann appears being a family name, so those hits would lead nowhere anyway.

I tried googling for spannemann together with wiki. That lead to a a contributor presenting himself. By accident he followed a family member doing canoe slalom together with his Spannemann. Then the usage with the guy in the motorcycle sidecar suddenly made sense, and we may forget the more sleazy connotations.

Gespann is a harnessed couple of horses for road or field work. It is also used about small work or sport teams down to two members. In that context Spannemänner would be work mates or team mates. In a musical context it could be section mates.

Klaus

Sowieso.