Stein auf!
Aug. 17th, 2003 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistSo I showed up for work last night and plopped down on the couch in the living room. They're always watching the news when I get there at ten. I hate television news, but I don't live there. Barbara likes to watch the news, so it's on. I don't care anyway; my immediate interests are usually what I have to do next and what I'd rather be doing instead of being at work. And, depending on the season, I find the air conditioning or the heat a lovely change from whatever I experienced during my commute.
Thinking about such things, I was taken aback by a co-worker asking me, "So, what's your shirt mean this time?" Then I remembered that this girl has been present for two instances of me explaining my binary t-shirt (which I have to do at least half the times I wear it, so I'm used to it, and I've always found it amusing than an article of my clothing can need explaining). Having heard it twice, I think she's still just humoring me and my assertion that 10 could ever mean 'two,' and that binary has any useful purpose.
I had to look down because I couldn't remember which shirt I was wearing that day. I usually just grab the top one off the stack when I get dressed in the morning, and don't think about it after that. But this was a good one, it was the "Stein auf!" one.
Caught off guard, I just stammered a little. The first thing that came to mind is It's a pun! But that isn't quite it. So I tried to explain, and I think she got the point, but it wasn't my best bit of rhetoric ever. It's a good story, though, and so I'll try to tell it better now:
A few summers ago my friend John asked if I wanted to go to a Lost and Found concert with his family. He knew I liked them. I said yes, and all four Xaviers and John's girlfriend and I went to this concert.
We sat down and I ended up between Matthew and his dad. Other people were coming in; Matthew pointed out one who was wearing a shirt that said "Stein auf!" I recognized it as German but this was before I knew any myself, so I asked him if he knew what it meant (I used to have to do this all the time; I swear I only took this year of German so I could better communicate with my friends who use it colloquially so often). He said he didn't know.
A minute later, his dad noticed the same thing and leaned over me to ask Matthew what "stein auf" means. Endlessly unpredictable, Matthew didn't just say he didn't know, as I'd thought he would. He was silent for a moment, and then giggled. "I guess it kind of means ... 'rock on,' " he said. "But ... it doesn't really. Stein means 'stone,' and auf means 'on,' but, like 'the pan is on the stove.' " (Or some such example; the point--which I know now--is that auf is for things that are on a flat surface.)
At some point during the concert, the story was told about Lost and Found (these two guys who sing strangely, one plays guitar and the other plays piano and they're fun and they make good music) going on tour in Germany. They made these shirts for that; they went around in Germany saying "stein auf!" to people they saw on the street, people who gave them breakfast--salami sandwiches; I remember that--and everything until someone finally did them the favor of telling them they were crazy.
Now I wanted a "Stein auf!" t-shirt. As cool as it would've been to have a shirt that said "rock on!" in another language, in this case it was somehow cooler to have one that didn't say "rock on" in another language. I got one (much to Matthew's chagrin; that was one of the times he declared I couldn't do something because he was already going to), Matthew got one, John has one, and I think their dad does, too.
So last night I said, "It--well ... this, see, it says 'rock on,' only it doesn't really." Et cetera. It's so lame, to hear me tell it. But the shirt is so cool.
Thinking about such things, I was taken aback by a co-worker asking me, "So, what's your shirt mean this time?" Then I remembered that this girl has been present for two instances of me explaining my binary t-shirt (which I have to do at least half the times I wear it, so I'm used to it, and I've always found it amusing than an article of my clothing can need explaining). Having heard it twice, I think she's still just humoring me and my assertion that 10 could ever mean 'two,' and that binary has any useful purpose.
I had to look down because I couldn't remember which shirt I was wearing that day. I usually just grab the top one off the stack when I get dressed in the morning, and don't think about it after that. But this was a good one, it was the "Stein auf!" one.
Caught off guard, I just stammered a little. The first thing that came to mind is It's a pun! But that isn't quite it. So I tried to explain, and I think she got the point, but it wasn't my best bit of rhetoric ever. It's a good story, though, and so I'll try to tell it better now:
A few summers ago my friend John asked if I wanted to go to a Lost and Found concert with his family. He knew I liked them. I said yes, and all four Xaviers and John's girlfriend and I went to this concert.
We sat down and I ended up between Matthew and his dad. Other people were coming in; Matthew pointed out one who was wearing a shirt that said "Stein auf!" I recognized it as German but this was before I knew any myself, so I asked him if he knew what it meant (I used to have to do this all the time; I swear I only took this year of German so I could better communicate with my friends who use it colloquially so often). He said he didn't know.
A minute later, his dad noticed the same thing and leaned over me to ask Matthew what "stein auf" means. Endlessly unpredictable, Matthew didn't just say he didn't know, as I'd thought he would. He was silent for a moment, and then giggled. "I guess it kind of means ... 'rock on,' " he said. "But ... it doesn't really. Stein means 'stone,' and auf means 'on,' but, like 'the pan is on the stove.' " (Or some such example; the point--which I know now--is that auf is for things that are on a flat surface.)
At some point during the concert, the story was told about Lost and Found (these two guys who sing strangely, one plays guitar and the other plays piano and they're fun and they make good music) going on tour in Germany. They made these shirts for that; they went around in Germany saying "stein auf!" to people they saw on the street, people who gave them breakfast--salami sandwiches; I remember that--and everything until someone finally did them the favor of telling them they were crazy.
Now I wanted a "Stein auf!" t-shirt. As cool as it would've been to have a shirt that said "rock on!" in another language, in this case it was somehow cooler to have one that didn't say "rock on" in another language. I got one (much to Matthew's chagrin; that was one of the times he declared I couldn't do something because he was already going to), Matthew got one, John has one, and I think their dad does, too.
So last night I said, "It--well ... this, see, it says 'rock on,' only it doesn't really." Et cetera. It's so lame, to hear me tell it. But the shirt is so cool.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Splendiferous.
Date: 2003-08-17 04:11 pm (UTC)Re: Splendiferous.
Date: 2003-08-17 04:40 pm (UTC)Free Advertising
Date: 2003-08-17 04:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 06:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 06:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-17 09:34 pm (UTC)But Jesus, I don't get the Stein Auf thing.
Kill me.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-18 10:55 am (UTC)thank you.
Date: 2003-10-09 11:00 am (UTC)now im not.
woo!
i want that shirt now too.