No Saxon invasion?

[authun]

"Finger from Butter!" - comment on someone rude enough to use their finger to scoop up butter at the dinner table. Could just be poor English though.

No you're right, it's a literal translation. In modern german the idiom 'Finger davonlassen' means something like 'leave it alone'.

I even found the expression used in a german first aid website, 'Finger weg von Butter und Mehl', 'finger away from butter and flour', ie for burns. Don't put butter or flour on burn injuries.

The next is harder to explain away as poor English usage:
"Throw the cow over the fence some hay."

This is more complex and whilst I have seen this, I don't know much about it. English has a Subject Verb Object word order, eg. man bites dog is different from dog bites man. German has a Subject Object Verb word order which can make long german sentances very difficult for english speakers to understand. You have to wait until the end of the sentance to get the verb which gives the sentance some meaning. The above though starts with a verb and is a VSO word order.

Welsh and Irish have a VSO order and it is also used in english for formulating questions or in poetry or song, eg. 'drink I ale tonight?' It has more a rhetorical/poetic feel to its construction. I don't know enough about the germanic dialects but it would not be unusual to ask in german, 'drink we tonight a beer?' ie a question rather than 'tonight, we drink a beer' ie. a statement.