Five German words ending with "-nf"

When I was a kid, I was often asked (as a game) to find the five words in the German language that end with "-nf". I found four, but never the fifth one, so I ended up wondering if that game was screwed from the beginning because there is no fifth word or what..... Now I'm grown up but I still haven't found it (not that somene asked me lately :-)
So now I'm asking you for help.
(I'll tell you later the four words with "-nf" that I know.)

Only four?

Sure, if you count ten different kinds of 'Hanf' as ten different words, then you are right. However, for me that's cheating ;-) because it's still the word 'Hanf' that ends with "-nf".......
An abbreviation doesn't count as a word I'd say.
So it looks like there is no fifth word, hhhmmmmmmmm....

I'm still only getting three, fünf Hanf Senf, even after looking at orangutan's link (and not counting compounds and abbreviations), unless you count das Hanf and der Hanf as two different words, which seems legitimate to me (I didn't know about das Hanf until now). Is that what you're counting as the fourth?

I wonder if this was a trick question, along the lines of (I won't attempt German): There are several German words that end in -nf; in fact five can be written so. Can you name all those words? The trick is with "fünf kann also geschrieben werden," or whatever the proper German for that would be.

VinnyD,

#3, the fourth one is Genf (name of Geneva in German). I didn't know about das Hanf neither...... sounds however a bit weird to me that textile hemp is das Hanf and botanical hemp is der Hanf!? (maybe I start a new thread for that!? hihihi...)

#4, very smart point, but if you say "fuenf (sorry, don't have Umlaut's on my keyboard) kann so geschrieben werden" it implicates a singular; referring to the five words ending in -nf, one would have to use the plural and say "5 (Woerter) koennen so geschrieben werden". So the trick wouldn't work.

#5 -- I saw Genf but I guess I was mentally excluding proper nouns also.

Yes, I was thinking in English where if you use "can" (or "will" or "may" etc) there's no difference between singular and plural in the verb. But there must be some way of phrasing it. "Man kann fünf so schreiben." How's that?

#6 That's it!!!! It works!

It's just that I don't remember how exactly it was phrased way back when I was a kid in primary school..... though I would guess it's similar to what I wrote in the OP since that's what was going round and round in my head for hours because I was determined to find out, one day.
But I'll ask my mother, she might be able to say.

OP, I was agreeing with you in #1, and like VinnyD, I did not count 'Genf' as it was a noun....

Please do come back and tell us what Mutti said....;)

#8 LOL

I promise I'll post Mutti's answer, however it might take a while since my parents left today for Canada for holidays and I'm not too sure about when I'll be able to talk to them next time....

I needlessly kept the "kann"; I amagine you could just say "Mann schriebt fünf so."

If it turns out I've figured this out, I think I have earned the German equivalent of a noddy badge. Do let us know, kilo fox.

#10, I would keep the "kann" as part of the explanation of the riddle or game or however you call it, it sounds more 'right' to my ear; though it's not completely wrong without.

I'm not too sure what a noddy badge is but we'll try our best to get one for you, you definitely deserve it ;-)

#11 -- OK, I'll take your word about "kann".

Noddy badges are actually not my culture either (I'm American). My understanding is that they're what English schoolteachers give children as a small reward: a picture of the Englsh children's book character Noddy stuck to the test paper or whatever. The American equivalent would be a gold star, but I like the sound of noddy badge better.

To supply all your Noddy needs, see here.

I think the custom of awarding noddy badges must be obsolete, though. I don't seem to find noddy badges for sale in bulk on the net. Perhaps it's thought to damage self-esteem unless everyone gets a Noddy badge. (Bart Simpson has a trophy from "Everybody Gets a Trophy Day".)

...perhaps if you checked e-BayUK, Vinny. I'll give you a Noddy Badge in spirit meanwhile! Great work w/German! :-)

Apparently, there's no real answer to this riddle. But if I understand that page correctly, there's a stream in Switzerland called Sernf, that was presumably added to the Duden dictionary at least in part because it ends in -nf, so that it can be listed as the fifth word now.

#14 -- Great link! Especially all the different answers for different categories of people :-)

#14, WOW!!! Awsome link!! Thanx very much!
I'll ask Mutti about the Sernf in Switzerland to see if she was aware of it.

Actually, there are even more than 5.

This sounds like a good idea for a late night TV phone in :-)

Well, I'm not too sure if anyone of you is still with me/this thread!?
Anyhow, as promised, just to let you know that finally I got the answer from Mutti - sorry that it took so long, my parents spent quite some time in the "underdevelopped" part of Canada, and then I spent some time in the Cambodian countryside - and in fact, they never knew the exact answer, if there really were five words ending in -nf, or what.... They had heard about the riddle that was going around in the newspapers etc., and to keep their kids busy, they asked us to find those five words. Which we never did.......

Thanks for reporting back, kilo fox. I like my theory however unconfirmed.