Well, "schmettern" (verb) literally means to smash or to belt something. "Schmetterling" comes from the old Slavic "Schmetten", meaning cream (the one you skim off milk), but it sounds more like it comes from "schmettern", which is a word still in use.

[–] YellowTraveller@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There's too many consonants

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But only the "TT" sound harsh, which is the same as butterfly, which I'd argue sounds harsher overall.

[–] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Good point. They even have the same amount of number of syllables.

Also, Butterfly sounds too much like Butt-fly

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 0 points 5 months ago

Thanks Sauerkraut, I thought so too.

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

If anything it's a good exemple of a nice German word