odd words revisited

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2000 - 20:11:13 MST


At 06:51 PM 24/01/00 -0800, spike wrote:

>Aw c'mon, Damien, get real. I speculate that you are the *only* person
>on the list who both read 1001 Nights, and is a fluent German speaker.

Neither. I've dipped into the Arabian Nights, and I failed first year
German a million years ago. I guess it's a matter of assumed common
cultural capital. (That would be Eugene.)

>didnt
>catch the reference to Scheherzade,

Oh, okay. I know her best through R-K's music, and John Barth's
quintessentially American novels where she frequently shows up as a character.

>and my mastery of German of one
>who has viewed half a dozen Hogan's Heroes reruns.

Ja vohl. Or however ja spell it.

The German word I referenced is, however, an *international* loan word
(akin to restaurant [Frog] and dickhead [Aust.]), taken up by English
precisely, and famously (in certain small corners of famousdom?), because
only the Krauts had the rat cunning to coin such a term, presumably since
they have so more more use for it.

All this of course has nothing to do with extropianism and I apologise most
insincerely.

Damien



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:02:38 MDT