[A series of Tumblr posts. The first shows a picture of ravioli, and reads: “This dish has another name - herrgottsb’scheisserle or ‘Fool the Lord’ - because of the story of how it first came about. One of the most popular theories is that the Cistercian monks of Maulbronn Monastery (hence the name Maultaschen) didn’t want to go without meat during Lent observance. So they concealed the forbidden food from the sight of the Lord by enclosing it in pasta dough.”
The next Tumblr quote post reads: “Ravioli Of Lying To God”
The final Tumblr quote post reads: “God: What are you eating? Cistercian Monk: chews faster”]
You don’t need to know much German to tell that Herrgottb’scheisserie does not quite translate to “Fool the Lord”.
“Bescheissen” is not as vulgar as you might think, even if it contains Scheisse (shit).
A more literal translation would be “little Good Lords cheat”. The “*le” at the end is a local (South German) dialect thing, a diminutive suffix meaning “little”, just like “doggy” means “little dog”.
Does “bullshit the Lord” work better?
Yeah. I am not a native speaker of either language though, is “shitting sb.” something one might say?
Anyway, the etymology, as I understand it, is:
So yeah, you could translate it as “thing to bullshit the Lord”, or “Godbullshitter”.
Token German chiming in
You got most of it quite right, except the ending. It’s -erle, or really just -le (depending on where you split the word). The suffix is used to change a word to sound smaller, cute, playful and generally less serious. It also has a southern accent/sound to me, but take that with a pinch of salt. Not sure if there is an english comparison. Its similar to another german suffix: -chen
So, putting it all together… “Lord God’s little enshittener”?
The ending is not -erie but -le which is a diminutive that gets used in certain southern german dialects.
“Herr” doesn’t mean “Mr” in this context, but [feudal] lord instead, so a more accurate translation would be “Lord God”
Close, but the word ends in -le, not -ie. The -le suffix is used as a diminutive form in some German dialects.