German lessons for Owlet: 1

Okay, I've been meaning to do this for a bit, but she just goosed me.

Remember Sahnehäubchen, the exciting new word I gushed about here some time back? Let's have a closer look at it.

1. It's a typical German compound noun. The first element is Sahne, which is the standard word for "cream". It's pronounced /za:n@/, with a voiced initial and a long vowel. In context, it often means "whipped cream", though the full term is Schlagsahne (from schlagen "beat, whip").
2. The second element, Häubchen, is a diminutive. The regular form is Haube "bonnet, cap, hood". This is the second element in Pickelhaube, the name for those spiked helmets (Pickel "pickaxe, pike") from Wilhelmine times.
3. Haube is feminine, as are most nouns ending in -e. However, adding the diminutive ending -chen switches it to neutre gender. (This is the source of Twain's well-known remark that in German, "a young lady has no sex, but a turnip has.") This is true of other diminutives as well, such as the more literary -lein and southern colloquial variants like -le and -li. (So Müesli is also neutre.)
4. Most nouns also undergo I-Umlaut when a diminutive suffix is added. There are historical reasons for this, but it's more relevant for the modern learner to know the sound changes. ä is pronounced essentially like e. eu in German is /OY/; English /OI/ as in boy is a close enough substitute. Thus, Häubchen is /"hOYpC@n/.
5. The literal meaning is, thus, "little cream hood" and, as mentioned before, it refers to the head of whipped cream on a drink or dessert. However, the metaphorical interpretation is "lagniappe".

Now, let's introduce definite articles, since it's best to learn this along with each noun in order to remember the gender assignment. In the nominative, they are der (masculine), die (feminine), and das (neutre). Thus:

• der Pickel
• die Haube, die Sahne
• das Häubchen, das Müesli

Any questions? Now a quiz:

(1) What gender is der Schnitt "the slice"?
(2) What would the diminutive of this be?
(3) How would you make a compound of this with Sahne? Any guesses what this would mean?