German Government Removes Words "Fahrt," "Assmann," From Language

BERLIN—The German government voted nearly unanimously to remove the German words “fahrt” and “assman” from their language, both for economic reasons and to attempt to put an end to decades of snickers from English-speakers.

In a silent but not deadly move “fahrt,” which in German means “travel,” was replaced by the English word. Critics who had sought the word change for are relieved and hope it will alter the perception the rest of the world, especially the European Union, has about the many German companies that had previously utilized it.

Heinz Knoke, a bus driver for tour company “Fahrt Tourist,” welcomes the change. “Driving a bus that has a two meter high [6 feet] red logo that reads ‘Fahrt Tourist’ is bad enough, but when you have to drive outside Germany the jeers really start.” He mentions that traveling in France is fine because “The French are too stuck up to admit they know English, except, of course, when they’re trying to hump a tourist.”

Hartmut Eing, a member of the European Commission for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said the move will allow hundreds of German companies to better market themselves in England as well as the United States. “You can imagine how German businesses that utilized terms like fahrt haus, gute fahrt, and flossfahrten might have not fared well with English speaking consumers in the past.”

The second word that will be altered is the ubiquitious Assmann, simply a last name that has been the brunt of jokes for over a decade, especially since the season six, episode nineteen, of Seinfeld, where Kramer mistakenly receives a set of personalized license plates which read “assman.”

“In 1995, German intelligence sources indicated that nearly every backpacking college student traveling between Munich and Berlin was taking a photo of himself next to any Assmann sign he or she could find,” Eing said. “But we did not make the Seinfeld connection until it was too late. We believe that year university-educated Americans were responsible for the removal of over 15,000 Assmann street sign and countless privately owned Assman related signage, costing the German government millions.”

The name Assmann, legislators have decided, will become the name Bacon, in honor of actor Kevin Bacon. However, not all members of parliament are happy with the change. Parliament member Wolfgang Assman said the move is just another example of how the German identity will become dilluted by the European Union.

“We’re Germans, and we have a distinctly German identity we shall lose if we make these ridiculous compromises,” Assman said. He says he will not change his name to Bacon, no matter how great the movie Foot Loose was. “I’ll be an Assmann until I die. Besides, who really cares what the fat, drunken slobs who inhabit the United States and Great Britain think.”