On Thursday I made the mistake of doing some shopping, along with a ton of other Hamburgers, and when my turn came I was thrown by the simple question Tüte dazu? – “A bag for/with that?” Being left speechless doing simple transactions is nothing new, however it prompted me to look up another word that I •thought• I was hearing during transactions: *Kassenbaum. Why a combination of die Kasse – “till, checkout or cash register” – and der Baum – “tree” – had made sense to me, given German compound nouns are usually quite logical, is quite puzzling! Of course, the word I was hearing is der Kassenbon, so perhaps I can excuse my mishearing given the second noun in the compound, der Bon, is taken from French and pronounced as either /bɔŋ/ – a bit like the English word “bong” – or /bõ:/ – which with its nasalization has no English parallel unless, as in this case, you count loanwords from French.
How interesting – have never heard Kassenbon before – I wonder if its a Hamburg expression. I’ve only remember coming across Kassenzettel or Quittung (in a taxi).
Well, I would correct my post but there doesn’t seem to be an edit function. Meant to say:
I only remember coming across Kassenzettel or Quittung (in a taxi).