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Google translate (and other sources) tell me that the correct spelling of Strudel in German is simply "Strudel".

However, I've often seen it written in English texts as strüdel. So, is this a mistake, or is this an alternate, but correct, spelling in German as well?

Ben Hocking
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    It's either a mistake or sort of a pun, since umlauts are often associated with German language (although other languages have diaereses as well - such as the strudel is associated with Austrian/German cuisine. – Arsak Dec 11 '18 at 16:31
  • But I suppose you have noticed that the recipes all use ‘u’, not ‘ü’? – Stephie Dec 11 '18 at 16:32
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    This would be a prototypcial question for consulting a dictionary. – Christian Geiselmann Dec 11 '18 at 17:13
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    Heavy Metal Strudel of course. – Janka Dec 12 '18 at 02:40
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    This questions shouldn't be deleted because of the great answers (especially Huberts). The question is not "How is strudel spelled correctly?" but rather "Why can I find the wrong form in written English?" – Ingo Bochmann Dec 12 '18 at 09:50
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    Reopened because the OP clearly stated they did use a dictionary but were still confused about this frequently used weird spelling. – Takkat Dec 12 '18 at 11:34

4 Answers4

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Some English speaking people who don't speak German don't understand the meaning of the dots on a, o and u, but they can see, that those dots are typical for German language. German language also often is perceived as sounding hard, and therefore in the 1970ies some heavy metal bands began to use umlauts in their names because those umlauts gave their names an even harder image:

  • Blue Öyster Cult
  • Motörhead
  • Mötley Crüe

This kind of usage is called metal umlauts or röck döts, and those metal umlauts made german umlauts popular even to people who was not fans of heavy metal music. So many English native speakers, who have no idea of german language may think:

If it is German, it must have umlauts.

I think Apfelstrudel was known in USA even before Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it was him (also in the 1970ies and 80ies) who made Apfelstrudel really popular in USA (baked by his mom), and he came from a German speaking country (Austria) and has a heavy German accent.

Soon the German word Apfelstrudel turned into the English-German mixture apple Strudel, but instead of keeping the first letter of Strudel in upper case (which in fact really is very typical for German language), they used a lowercase s, but added dots to the u to make it look more German. And so the English röck-döts word

strüdel

was created. When I search for "strüdel -strudel" today, Google reports 22.300 results.

So, this special spelling is neither correct German, nor is it correct English. But you will find it relatively often, but only on English websites.

Hubert Schölnast
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    Do you have a reference for the claim that Schwartzenegger made Apfelstrudel famous? History makes me doubt that a bit. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States)) – Stephie Dec 11 '18 at 17:22
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    Yes, metäl äpple strüdel. If you can somehow prove your hypothesis that strüdel is an outflow of this, then this is my favourite answer. (Isn't strudel (with schnitzel) in Sound of Music, or even earlier?) – LаngLаngС Dec 11 '18 at 17:31
  • That's a British website. Mr. Schwarzenegger might have made Apfelstrudel popular in the US, but certainly not in the UK. We'd rather find out Jamie Oliver's Or Gordon Ramsey's way of writing that word. – tofro Dec 11 '18 at 19:44
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    Objection! ö and ü are much more typical for Turkish than for German. Something like müdürmüsünüz (= Are you the boss?) is totally normal in Turkish. The only circumstance that makes Americans believe that these graphs are typical German is that they know even less Turkish. – Christian Geiselmann Dec 11 '18 at 23:06
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    Objection Number 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger does not have at all a German accent. What he has is a very prominent Austrian accent. – Christian Geiselmann Dec 11 '18 at 23:08
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    @ChristianGeiselmann Objection to your objection 1: The train of thought is not umlauts => German but German => umlauts. – Jan Dec 12 '18 at 01:51
  • I even saw only one or two days ago somebody thinking that guten Morgen be spelt güten Morgen. I believe there may be precedence for that misspelling in an English history book aimed at children (one of the Horrible Histories). – Jan Dec 12 '18 at 01:52
  • @Stephie: Auf die Schnelle habe ich nur diesen Beitrag gefunden, in dem der Apfelstrudel und der Nussstrudel von seinen Mama Aurelia erwähnt werden: Apfelstrudel: https://youtu.be/dxYoCBt0pXg?t=265 Nussstrudel: https://youtu.be/dxYoCBt0pXg?t=513 Ich kann mich aber erinnern, dass Schwarzenegger auch bei anderen Interviews mehrmals den guten Apfelstrudel seiner Mama gelobt hat. – Hubert Schölnast Dec 12 '18 at 07:46
  • @Stephie For that, there cannot be such a ref, as this seems to be some cultural blindness? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IagRZBvLtw https://kurier.at/kultur/warum-the-sound-of-music-in-oesterreich-fast-niemand-kennt/400044644 – LаngLаngС Dec 12 '18 at 14:38
  • Think of Hüsker Dü too. – Rudy Velthuis Dec 12 '18 at 22:40
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    @ChristianGeiselmann Wobei aber das türkische "ü" vom deutschen "ü" abgeleitet ist, was die Schreibweise betrifft (als in der Türkei anfang des 20. Jhd. die Schrift auf lateinische Buchstaben umgestellt wurde, hat man das Zeichen des gleich klingenden deutschen Buchstaben übernommen). – Volker Landgraf Dec 13 '18 at 15:00
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That is simply wrong.

Maybe the author was trying to build the plural (the singular pieces close to the pictures are correct, the wrong spelling is consistently used in the two places on the page - title and "more" link at the page bottom - where Strudel connects with "recipes"), but Strüdel is not the correct plural. It's Strudel like in Singular.

tofro
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It's spelled Strudel

no matter what,

πάντα ῥεῖ
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Strudel (without the umlaut) is the correct spelling in German. Pronounced "schtroodel" With the umlaut it is americanus ignoramus spelling. With the umlaut, it would be pronounced "schtreedel".

theguest
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