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[–] 81 points 10 months ago (16 children)

Krankenwagen = sick car = ambulance

Krankenhaus = sick house = hospital

German (as well as most of the germanic family) does word construction really well.

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  • [–] 46 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Help I'm kranken, someone call a krankenwagon to take me to the krankenhaus before I krank again

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Danish uses "hospital" as a word, but they also have "sygehus" (house of the sick).

    Apparently, English also has "sickhouse": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sickhouse#English

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Germany has Hospital as well. But it sounds archaic.

    If I recall correctly hospitals were just the only "hotels" sick people could afford. So that's where nuns would go to care for them. So more sick people would come because they would get good care there. Until they made the hospitals the official house where they care for sick people.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    While that may be an element it also comes from the Knights Hospitallers who would set up rest stops for pilgrims. The thing is pilgrims would often get sick and have to be taken care of by the Hospitallers, which also blends into what you're talking about.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    救護車

    救 --> save/rescue
    護 --> protect
    車 --> car/vehicle

    aka: Ambulance

    An ambulance is a life saving car protecting you, or to abbreviate it, an SCP.

    An ambulance is an SCP confirmed.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Interesting what languages go with, as Japanese keeps the save part but drops the protect in favor of hurry/emergency, so it's the "hurry up and save you car" 救急車

    Even ambulance itself comes from the French phrase walking hospital, and then the hospital part got dropped. We still retain the word ambulant to mean moving in English

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