What a Vater does

When I was teaching German in England, my students soon let me know which were their favourite German words: Kugelschreiber, Büstenhalter and Vater. They liked Kugelschreiber, I assume, because it was so nice and complicated in a very German kind of way, they liked Büstenhalter, I assume, because it seemed so logical, and they liked Vater, I assume, because the pronunciation of the word reminded them of an English word not at all related with this word. Unwittingly, I added a fourth one a little later when I introduced the German word for gloves. I got this reaction: “Handschuhe? Handschuhe! Handschuhe, ha, ha! Shoes for the hands! The Germans wear shoes on their hands!” I admit I had never realised we did.