Watercooler Stories

GERMANS FROWNS ON 'DENGLISH'

Fed up with the language of Goethe being corrupted with phases as "der call center," Germany is cracking down on what it calls "Denglish."

The Internet and lots of travel to English-speaking countries has boosted the use of English mixed with German.

Protectionists will meet next month and hope to get Berlin's 140,000 civil servants to stop using English in the workplace, the London Guardian reports.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the Goethe Institute in London, which promotes German culture abroad, found there was little interest in all things German in England.

RETRO SNEAKERS RED HOT

A Los Angeles store that sells sneakers has become a phenomenon thanks to surging demand for old styles of sneakers.

In the mid-1980s, the sneaker industry stars were expensive "performance" models such as Nike's Air Jordan line and the sneaker store, Sportie, struggled to compete with the chains.

By the early 1990s the high-end sneakers were being shunned by Snoop Dogg and Nirvana in favor of retro sneakers and the owners of Sportie circled the globe looking for overstocks of Pumas, Pony and KangaROOS, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The hunch paid off, business is booming as retro sneakers are everywhere.

CHILDREN BUY NET CIGARETTES EASILY

Children and adolescents can easily buy cigarettes over the Internet, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study.

Selling cigarettes to minors is against the law in all 50 states, but the study found age often was not verified when buying tobacco products online.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, had four volunteers, ages 11 to 15, under adult supervision buy cigarettes from 55 Internet cigarette vendors.

While 90 percent of the Internet vendors warned potential customers they had to be at least 18 years old and some vendors required buyers to fax or mail a copy of a photo ID, only four refused to send the cigarettes when the minors did not produce an ID.

SATELLITE 'PAY-FOR-USE' TOLLS

The European Space Agency is funding an Irish technology company, Mapflow, for a feasibility study on implementing a pan-European road tolling system.

The research is aimed at determining a "pay for use" basis for tolls.

In April, the European Commission published a proposal that all vehicles should pay road tolls electronically, with full implementation foreseen for 2010.

Under the proposal, all vehicles will carry a "black box," which will be tracked by satellites relaying information on the distance traveled by the vehicle, the class of road traveled and the time the journey was made.