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

[oh-meow.livejournal.com]

I had to look up what a firebox was in English! Different fireplace designs perhaps? Fireplaces here tend to be Victorian. What about firelighters (those little paraffin blocks) or spills (when you twiddle newspaper into long sticks to help you light the fire)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

We never had "firelighters" and I never knew those little twists of newspaper had a name. anicca_anicca did suggest Anmachholz "kindling".

[oh-meow.livejournal.com]

Ah kindling and firelighters are different. Firelighters are small blocks of paraffin about the size of an ice cube. You put them under a layer of kindling and then put coal/wood and newspaper on top of the kindling. Britain's damp cold climate means it takes a bit of an effort to get a fire that starts and continues properly.

[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.)