My German is rather limited and my dictionary is in my car. However, experience with speaking German in Germany does remind me that, even though I did not spell the words correctly, I would have been understood. From a standpoint of the original post, the difference between the English abbreviation (l.h./r.h.) and the German is a matter of capitalization (l.H/r.H).
I read messages for days about this issue without anyone mentioning the French abbreviations. Perhaps I should have avoided the German entirely. That, however, seemed less than helpful. In fact, when I was preparing the message for a moment I had written "Roth Hande", then realized that is the brand name for some German cigarettes. Of course, I may have spelled that wrong, too. So why did I bother? I wanted to be helpful if I could. I did not expect to create an embarrassing international linguistic debacle. As I recall, none of the replies to the original message indicated that anyone actually played the piano, which was the source of the issue from the beginning. Thank you for pointing out my errors. My remorse at being such an ungracious conversant and miserable lout is immeasurable. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Oh, did I spell that wrong? I may have. To err is human, etc.. Perhaps a personal note offering a correction would have been more appropriate. Guy Hayden -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David W. Fenton Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 11:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Finale] left hand, right hand abbreviation What's your point here? You were wrong, in a relatively minor way, but wrong, nonetheless. Why would you not be grateful for a correction from a native German speaker? I learned German a long time ago, but I recognize that I am missing a lot of the details and am always grateful for corrections from people like Johannes because I recognize that I can't possibly have the same depth of understanding of the language that a native speaker does. What truly amazes me is the idiomatic written English of folks like Johannes -- if I didn't know that he was not a native English speaker, I don't think I could detect it from his postings on the list. That humbles me whenever I think I have something to say about the German language -- I'm not even in the same universe as Johannes when it comes to second-language proficiency. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
