Germans and Slavs share a long and gruesome history ever since the latter barged into the lands of the former. As this was just after the departure of Attila and his Huns, the newcomers were hardly welcome. Much of the unhappy exchange over a millennium and a half remains buried in language. Yesterday I touched upon a few unsavory words that Slavs picked up from Germans. This morning it came to me that Slavs have a collective revenge upon Germans in the name they have given to each one of them: Nemac or Nemec. There are slight variations only in the name for Germans across Slavic languages. And it always means the same: mute, speechless, or dumb. The Germans were incomprehensible to the Slavs, that is. And the mutes still bear the same scornful name to this very day.