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cosmolinguistI've noticed that I've started talking to my fish in German.
I wander out to the kitchen this morning in search of food. Surprisingly, I decide on normal breakfast food, to be eaten at a normal breakfast hour. I get a bowl and spoon and put them on the table. Then I notice Philo, and think I should feed him, before I forget. "Guten Morgen, Philo," I say, unscrewing the lid of his jar of food. "Wie geht's?" He doesn't answer. Just keeps swimming. "Frühstück!" I announce (after groping for the word for a second--"lunch" and "dinner" are easy; in the German tradition of being verbose and obvious, they're Mittagessen (mid-day eating) and Abendessen (evening eating), but of course Morgenessen would be too easy. I sprinkle a few flakes in and watch him attack them as I prepare my cereal.
I am reminded of Stuart Davis, who says he had a ferret who spoke Latin. "Classical Latin, not ecclesiastical Latin; he rather despised that as a bastardization of the original language. He could speak Latin better than me, but he didn't want to." It's a good song. The song part is about a dead skunk in the middle of the road, the story about the ferret is just interjected because that's the fun of live Stuart Davis.
I'm also reminded of Matthew's tendency to talk to cats in German. He might talk to other pets in German, but I've only seen around cats--in my house last year and his family's house always (he's been around my fish too, I guess, but he doesn't talk to Philo except to tell him he's boring because he doesn't swim enough). He called both Alerick and Schrödinger "Katze!" (even those of you who aren't Deutsch-sprechers might guess that means "cat," and you'd guess correctly) And when a new cat showed up at his family's house this summer, he started calling it Die Neue Katze, the new cat, so her name is Neue (pronouced Noya). I think he thinks it's silly that the cat is named "New"; I think it's kind of cool.
Darren even wanted to get a cat and name it something German like "Klaus-Dieter." Or "München," which he likes better than the English variant, Münich. (Why we had to change the name of that town--while leaving Berlin and Hanover and all the others alone, as far as I can tell--is beyond me.) German names weren't the only possibilities he thought of for this hypothetical cat, but I think they're the best. Except maybe "Uzumaki."
I wander out to the kitchen this morning in search of food. Surprisingly, I decide on normal breakfast food, to be eaten at a normal breakfast hour. I get a bowl and spoon and put them on the table. Then I notice Philo, and think I should feed him, before I forget. "Guten Morgen, Philo," I say, unscrewing the lid of his jar of food. "Wie geht's?" He doesn't answer. Just keeps swimming. "Frühstück!" I announce (after groping for the word for a second--"lunch" and "dinner" are easy; in the German tradition of being verbose and obvious, they're Mittagessen (mid-day eating) and Abendessen (evening eating), but of course Morgenessen would be too easy. I sprinkle a few flakes in and watch him attack them as I prepare my cereal.
I am reminded of Stuart Davis, who says he had a ferret who spoke Latin. "Classical Latin, not ecclesiastical Latin; he rather despised that as a bastardization of the original language. He could speak Latin better than me, but he didn't want to." It's a good song. The song part is about a dead skunk in the middle of the road, the story about the ferret is just interjected because that's the fun of live Stuart Davis.
I'm also reminded of Matthew's tendency to talk to cats in German. He might talk to other pets in German, but I've only seen around cats--in my house last year and his family's house always (he's been around my fish too, I guess, but he doesn't talk to Philo except to tell him he's boring because he doesn't swim enough). He called both Alerick and Schrödinger "Katze!" (even those of you who aren't Deutsch-sprechers might guess that means "cat," and you'd guess correctly) And when a new cat showed up at his family's house this summer, he started calling it Die Neue Katze, the new cat, so her name is Neue (pronouced Noya). I think he thinks it's silly that the cat is named "New"; I think it's kind of cool.
Darren even wanted to get a cat and name it something German like "Klaus-Dieter." Or "München," which he likes better than the English variant, Münich. (Why we had to change the name of that town--while leaving Berlin and Hanover and all the others alone, as far as I can tell--is beyond me.) German names weren't the only possibilities he thought of for this hypothetical cat, but I think they're the best. Except maybe "Uzumaki."
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 08:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 09:04 am (UTC)This reminds me of another
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 09:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 11:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 02:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 03:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:05 am (UTC)Sprul is/was those tearaway bits of hole punched paper on the sides of printer paper for dotmatrix printers. But who still uses dot matrix printers anymore? I bet many of the younger generation don't even know what sprul is, and thus were robbed of all the fun things our generation could do with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:15 am (UTC)Yes, each piece was like elongated origami. the joys.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 10:40 am (UTC)