"This is a very schickimicki restaurant", said my daughter as we ate our Christmas dinner in Munich. We then spent the rest of the meal trying to think of the best English translation for schickimicki. My daughter suggested 'Sloanie', but 'chi-chi' is perhaps a better translation. Schickimicki means 'trendy', but snobbishly so. It comes from the German word schick, which means 'smart' or 'chic'.
I learnt German at school in the 1960s and 70s, but I'd never heard the word before. It's not new, however, as I discovered that the word featured in the title of a 1980s TV series.
Thoughts of a German: What about "posh". Doesn't posh also have that "trendy but slightly snobbish" meaning?
Posted by: SirSiggi | January 06, 2010 at 07:13 PM
Thank you for reading, and for your comment, SirSiggi. Posh certainly has the 'slightly snobbish' meaning, but not necessarily 'trendy', which has a sense of something being up to date or following the latest trends. Posh means smart or stylish, but it doesn't have to be up to date. The Ritz hotel could be said to be posh, but that doesn't mean it's trendy.
Posted by: Virtual Linguist | January 07, 2010 at 10:13 AM