der Amtsschimmel

Today’s German word comes with a photo:

Der Amtsschimmel, sign from the Zum Amtsschimmel pub in Freinsheim, Germany

Der Schimmel is a white horse (also mold, but that’s another post). Das Amt is an administrative office. Put them together, and you get der Amtsschimmel, the dreaded beaurocratic mess we Americans call red tape. Why is red tape a white horse? No one knows anymore. But when someone does everything by the book, Germans say he likes to ride the Amtsschimmel–den Amtsschimmel reiten. And wherever things are wrapped up in a ridiculous amount of red tape, people say der Amtsschimmel wiehert–the Amtsschimmel neighs. Take, for example, the now revoked European Union Commission Regulation No 2257/94. It forbade the sale of bananas that have “abnormal curvature”! Der Amtsschimmel must have had a good long horse laugh over that.

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