[_petronius]

The semantic space that "lager" covers in German is around storage/collection: so it covers concepts that in English are distinguished by worlds like "camp" (storage of people; and is therefore applied to prison camps) and "warehouse". Lager beer is matured in cold storage (like a cellar), hence "Lagerbier" just means "beer kept in storage", roughly.

Because of differing semantic coverage, a lot of words between German and English are not 1:1 mappings. A reverse example is that in English we often speak of generic entrances, while in German you would normally distinguish between an entrance you drive through ("Einfahrt") versus walk ("Eingang").

[kgwgk]

>The semantic space that "lager" covers in German is around storage/collection

It's wider than that and covers also the sleeping place of people and animals. Lager is related to lair in English.

[chrisdhoover]

Wow, I didnt know einfarht bs eingang. For most folks speaking English, such a distinction is not needed. For me, in my work, I have to speak of vehicle versus pedestrian all the damn time.-

[twic]

But note that "lager beer" is not at all similar to "prison wine".

[dr_dshiv]

At UCSD, the campus library is named “Geisel Library” (Geisel means hostage)

[stephencanon]

The medical school at Dartmouth, too.