WotD: Fireplace Vocabulary I

[muckefuck]

Today the bulk of the furniture arrived for our refurbished living room and we decided to mark the occasion by basking in the warmth of the fireplace. Both monshu and I grew up depending on wood-burning fireplaces for heating, so it's going to take some getting used to clean-burning natural gas. We compared terminology for the various elements of a working hearth and it made me realise how few of those words I know translations for. So here's the first in a short series.

German

• Der Kamin "fireplace; chimney; flue"
• der offene Kamin "fireplace"
• die Feuerbüchse "firebox"
• der Schornstein "chimney"
• der Rauchabzug "flue"
• die Luftklappe "damper"
• die Feuerstätte "hearth"
• der/das Kaminsims "mantlepiece"
• der Ofenschirm "fire screen"
• das Feuergitter "fire guard"
• der Feuerrost "grate"
• der Feuerbock "fire-dog, andiron"
• das Kaminbesteck "fire irons"
• der Schürhaken "poker"
• der Kaminblasebalg "fireplace bellows"
• die Kaminzange "fire tongs"
• das Brennholz "firewood"
• der Kaminruß "chimney soot"

Comments

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

These are "Anzünder" (Kaminanzünder, Grillanzünder, Anzündwürfel..).
A more colloquial/generic expression for it is Fidibus.

I wasn't quite sure but Frau Wikipedia has the same information: "Ein Fidibus ist ein harzreicher Holzspan oder ein gefalteter Papierstreifen und dient als Hilfe zum Anzünden von Feuer."

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I saw the word "Fidibus" in LEO and couldn't quite believe it was genuine, but it is confirmed by Kluge as a bit of archaic student slang: "Vielleicht scherzhafte Entstellung der Horazstelle ture et fidibus (Ode 1,36,1) 'mit Weihrauch und Saiten(spiel)', wobei Weihrauch auf das Rauchen bezogen und fidibus scherzhaft umgedeutet worden wäre." Merkwürdig!

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

But despite the Latin roots (albeit with an unclear etymology) Fidibus is not a fancy word. Maybe people are used to it because it is in "hokus pokus fidibus"?
I can't speak for the whole of Germany but in the Palatinate it's what people call them, both the cubes and the wood/paraffin combinations or suchlike, as was confirmed to me by two of the fire-making males in my extended family.
(Keine Ahnung wieso, aber Grillen und Feuermachen (im Kamin) ist Männersache.)