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Tante-Emma-Laden

Learn a funny, quirky German word each week with DW's Word of the Week feature. This week: Tante-Emma-Laden.

https://p.dw.com/p/RkcO
Tante Emma Laden
Image: picture-alliance / dpa
If good old Aunt Emma had a shop, what would she sell there? Shoes, toothpaste, canned soup, garden tools, magazines - that is, everything but the kitchen sink. In reality there is no Aunt Emma, but in some German towns you may find a general store, which is what many Germans would call a Tante-Emma-Laden. Nowadays, however, they are often run by members of the country's Turkish community, prompting a group of German-Turkish businesspeople to rename the stores "Uncle Mehmet shops."