How are there so many of them

https://lemmy.world/post/19221707

How are there so many of them - Lemmy.World

I still don’t know what ich_iel is and at this point I’m too afraid to ask
It’s the German version of me_irl. Stands for “Ich _ im echten Leben” and is a direct translation of the English
Aww, thanks! Consider me slightly more educated than when I awoke this morning :)
it is only me_irl in name though, it is a general meme / conversational community with the obnoxious (and over used to death) in joke that is zangendeutsch.
“Zangendeutsch” means an aggressive way of removing the influence of english into the german language. But outside of ich_iel we write in english as everyone. Which is obviously a little bit weird, isn’t it?
No, that’s wrong. Zangendeutsch is all about English influence and playfully literal translations even when there are better German words. So you need to translate it back to English and into German again to decode it and that’s the fun about it.
So is that the “Zange”? Because you need to go from the things you are holding (the information, in “German”) to the hinge (the literal English translation) and back down again (actual German translation) to understand (aka grasp it)‽

I’m not sure if I understood your deduction. The literal translation of “Zange” would be “tongs”, “pliers” or “pincer”. Hinges are the things that make doors swing and hold to a wall right?

Multiple source say the origin of the word isn’t documented but the best explanation they come up with is that pliers can be used to bend something into a different form.

My guess was it has its origin in the proverb “Das würde ich nicht mal mit der Kneifzange anfassen” which translates to “I wouldn’t even touch that with pliers” as in stuff you detest that much that you rather would stay away from it.