biology

Muggeseggele

Muggeseggele is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Muggeseggele rather than just read about it. In short: Muggeseggele, or Muckenseckel, is a humorous Alemannic German idiom used in Swabia to designate a nonspecific very small length or amount of something; it refers to a housefly's scrotum. It has been called the smallest Swabian unit of measurement and plays a similar role in northern Baden-Württemberg and Franconia.

Key takeaways

Muggeseggele belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Muggeseggele to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Muggeseggele from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Muggeseggele, or Muckenseckel, is a humorous Alemannic German idiom used in Swabia to designate a nonspecific very small length or amount of something; it refers to a housefly's scrotum. It has been called the smallest Swabian unit of measurement and plays a similar role in northern Baden-Württemberg and Franconia. The term Muggeseggele has an iconic character and is one of the most preferred Swabian idioms. In a 2009 readers' survey by Stuttgarter Nachrichten, the largest newspaper in Stuttgart, Muggeseggele was chosen as "the most beautiful Swabian word" by a large margin.

Etymology The Swabian term for housefly is Mugg. This is akin to Mücke, the standard German word for mosquito. According to linguist Hans-Martin Gauger, the second element in the word Muggeseggele corresponds to the standard German Säckel, meaning little sack; the term, therefore, must have originally referred to the scrotum, like the Latin cognate saccellus. This second element in the word occurs independently in Swabian German as Seckel, which is used as a swear word and is thus a rare instance of a sexually themed abusive word in the German language, which mostly uses scatological swearing. In the case of Muggeseggele, the sexual and abusive aspect is not at all present. On the contrary, it is mostly used to express a very small but distinctive distance or amount of substance, as in "the soup needs a Muggeseggele of parsley". It can be used in speaking to children and is deemed completely harmless (compare Bubenspitzle). It is used in the TV series Ein Fall für B.A.R.Z., which takes place in Fellbach. German's public broadcaster SWR's children's website SWR Kindernetz (kids' network) mention the word in a Swabian dictionary that presents some peculiarities of the Swabian dialect to their young audience. Kindernetz uses the sentence A muggeseggele Zeit hätten wir noch! and translates it as Ein bisschen Zeit hätten wir noch, meaning "We still have a tiny bit of time left".

Cultural importance and particular instances of usage Wolfgang Wulz, president of the Verein Schwäbische Mundart (Association of the Swabian Tongue), has praised Muggeseggele and Lällebäbbel as prominent examples of distinctive and admirable Swabian expressions. Both foreign and German immigrants to Baden-Württemberg tend to include some of the specific dialect expressions in the course of speaking. They often do not adapt to the dialect, but show their desire to integrate into the local community by adopting key regional vocabulary. Muggeseggele is one of the words deemed funny and distinctive and used in that way as part of a cultural code. A cookery book honoring the relationship between the twinned cities of Karlsruhe and Halle contains a small glossary of Saxon and Alemannic words, including Muggeseggele. An article in Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted Thomas Lindner, CEO of textile machinery company Groz-Beckert in Albstadt-Ebingen and Speaker of Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau (VDMA) and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Reutlingen, as saying: "At our Indian premises, everybody knows what a muggaseggele is." Groz-Beckert is a leading company in the production of textile needles and the term Muggeseggele is therefore used to stress exactitude and diligence as well as Swabian cultural influence throughout the company. The term is used as an example of must-know Swabian vocabulary in courses of Swabian as a foreign language in Tübingen. The same applies for lectures and books written in Swabian. While Muggeseggele has often been used to refer simply to an extremely small measure, actual measurements of fly penises by an entomologist at the Naturkundemuseum in Stuttgart gave an average length of 0.22 millimetres (0.0087 in).

English equivalents A gnat's cock or a gnat's dick is a similar construction in the English language, but it has a more irreverent or obscene aspect. In Scots English, a "baw hair" is a similar unit of very small distance. In Australia, the colloquial bee's dick is used. For example, “The ball missed the gentleman’s head by a mere bee’s dick”. [1]

See also Beard-second, a unit of length inspired by the light-year, but applicable to extremely short distances such as those in integrated circuits. It is the length an average beard grows in one second. Kemp Bennett Kolb defines the distance as exactly 100 angstroms (10 nanometres), as does Nordling and Österman's Physics Handbook. Hair's breadth Indefinite and fictitious numbers List of humorous units of measurement List of unusual units of measurement

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Muggeseggele

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Muggeseggele claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Muggeseggele before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Muggeseggele ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Muggeseggele

In research: Muggeseggele appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Muggeseggele in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Muggeseggele is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics German words and phrases, Insect anatomy, Sexual anatomy, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Muggeseggele outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Muggeseggele in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Muggeseggele means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Muggeseggele out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Muggeseggele in simple terms?

Why does Muggeseggele matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Muggeseggele?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Muggeseggele.