German D article at Heise (ot)

[mike]

Am 03.01.2007, 23:35 Uhr, schrieb Pragma <ericanderton at yahoo.removeme.com>:

> The use of the word "Urgestein" here must mean something like  
> "milestone", but I'm not sure as it doesn't translate literally in a  
> meaningful way; all I could find was "primary/parent/primitive rock" or  
> "depth stone" (from geology via wikipedia).  I guess it's a use specific  
> to software engineering?  Is there a dictionary for this kind of usage?

It comes from "Ur-" and "-gestein". "Ur-" is usually added to the  
beginning of a word if a particular thing is the origin of something or at  
least very old or ancient, "-gestein" simply means rock.

So the word "Urgestein" means "ancient rock", the material from which  
planets are formed is usually the meaning in the literal sense. But it's  
mostly used to indicate that a person or company has been a long time  
around in a certain area, with a positive meaning behind it. Like U2 is  
often referred to as "Urgesteine der Rock-Szene".

This, however, does not generally apply to all parts of the  
german-speaking world :)

-mike

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