Martin wrote: "@#!GRMBLGnggnn%&$ !!!!"
Darren opined: "To be fair, EVERYTHING in German sounds like that."
Very off-topic but once again timefor THAT - Please enjoy :-)
The Awful German Language
A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing
language it is.
Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing 'cases' where I am
master of it, a seemingly insignificant preposition intrudes itself into my
sentence clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground
from under me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird (it is
always inquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody):
"Where is the bird?" Now the answer to this question - according to the book -
is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Of
course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to the book. Very well, I
begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I begin at the wrong end,
necessarily, for that is the German idea. I say to myself, "Regen (rain) is
masculine - or maybe it is feminine - or possibly neuter - it is too much
trouble to look, now. Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the)
Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may tur
n out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on
the hypothesis that it is masculine. Very well - then the rain is der Regen, if
it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or
discussion - Nomina-tive case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a
general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something
- that is, resting (which is one of the German grammar's ideas of doing
something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem
Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively - it
is falling - to interfere with the bird, likely - and this indicates movement
-which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem
Regen into den Regen." Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this
matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in
the blacksmith shop 'wegen (on account of) den Regen
' Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word
'wegen' drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive
case, regardless of consequences - and that therefore this bird stayed in the
blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."
Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution;
so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no
other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum book. In
German a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what reverence that
shows for the turnip, and what disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in
print. I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German
Sunday-school books:
Gretchen: "Wilhelm, where is the turnip?"
Wilhelm: "She has gone to the kitchen."
Gretchen: "Where is the beautiful English maiden?"
Wilhelm: "It has gone to the opera."
The Germans have a kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in
two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the
other hauat the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than
that? These things are called 'separable verbs'. The German grammar is
blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one
of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with
his performance. A favourite one is reiste ab, which means departed. Here is an
example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English.
"The trunks being now ready, he de- after kissing his mother and sisters, and
once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple
white muslin with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair,
had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement
of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again
upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, parted."
Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these
examples:
Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen
Alterthumswissenschaften
Kinderbewahrungsanstalten
Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen
Wiederherstellungsbestrebungen
Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen
These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not
rare; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them marching
majestically across the page - and if he has any imagination he can see the
banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest
subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. Whenever I come across a
good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a
valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors,
and thus increase the variety of my stock.
(From A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain, 1879)
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