Mobile networks

Most of this list is engineers’ German, but one verb has escaped from the control room into the kitchen. funken means to radio, and on a ship’s bridge it is used exactly as English uses it: Der Kapitän funkte die Position an die Küstenwache. In ordinary conversation, though, it turns up almost only in the perfect and with the empty subject es. Zwischen den beiden hat es gefunkt says that two people have fallen for each other; Hat es jetzt endlich gefunkt?, said to someone staring at a problem, asks whether the penny has dropped at last. Neither sentence involves a transmitter, and neither can be turned round to name who did the transmitting. So when gefunkt appears in a novel, look at the subject first: a captain or a pilot sends a message, es reports that something has happened between people.