- 20:36 At Devo show. almost missed it due to a sick-induced nap. thank goodness for opening acts! the fans here look awesome! #
- 22:26 Devo is awesome, even if they are old farts now! i wish i were less sick and could jump around and whoop it up. #
Nov. 9th, 2009
Marked Twain just killed me with Deutsch
Nov. 9th, 2009 03:49 pm"
you have no idea how hard this made me laugh just now. unless youspeak german, that is.
seriously, i attained a perfect sixpack from the strength of my guffaws ;-)
>headdesk<
An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech -- not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary -- six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam -- that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it -- after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb -- merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out -- the writer shovels in "haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein," or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a man's signature -- not necessary, but pretty. German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head -- so as to reverse the construction -- but I think that to learn to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a foreigner.
you have no idea how hard this made me laugh just now. unless youspeak german, that is.
seriously, i attained a perfect sixpack from the strength of my guffaws ;-)
>headdesk<