What do Mark Twain and Germany have in common?

I dunno. Mark Twain liked that awful German language, I guess. And of course the German language has often been “sanitized” in the past, just like Mark Twain’s English is getting sanitized right now.

This makes me angry. And sad. Because, well, it’s so sad. And the people doing it are so clueless. Or, worse still, they are perfectly aware of what they are doing.

Just in case you might care, here are some thoughts on Politically Correct English from David Foster Wallace that I, for one, find very interesting indeed:

“Traditionally, Prescriptivists tend to be political conservatives and Descriptivists tend to be liberals. But today’s most powerful influence on the norms of public English is actually a stern and exacting form of liberal Presciptivism. I refer to Politically Correct English (PCE).”

“The same ideological principles that informed the original Descriptivist revolution–namely, the rejections of traditional authority (born of Vietnam) and of traditional inequality (born of the civil rights movement)–have now actually produced a far more inflexible Prescriptivism, one largely unencumbered by tradition or complexity and backed by the threat of real-world sanctions (termination, litigation) for those who fail to conform.”

“PCE’s various pre- and proscriptions are taken very seriously indeed by colleges and corporations and government agencies, whose institutional dialects now evolve under the beady scrutiny of a whole new kind of Language Police.”

“PCE is not just silly but ideologically confused and harmful to its own cause.”

“PCE’s core fallacy is that a society’s mode of expression is productive of its attitudes rather than a product of these attitudes.”

“PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact–in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself–of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional prescriptions ever were.”

If interested, take a look at Authority And American Usage (pages 110 and 111 or thereabout) in Consider The Lobster.

“Many thinkers and bloggers are understandably aghast at this Ministry of Truth-style fiddling with a classic text.”

“Handy” finally verboten!

It’s about freakin’ time somebody got rid of that awful “English” word–and all those other so-called English words and phrases that Germans are always throwing around here so disrespectfully as if they were, I dunno, English or something.

Every time I accidentally use the word handy in English conversation (with other native speakers who don’t speak German, I mean) they look at me as if I had just arrived from Mars.

Germany’s Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer has finally struck a blow for German (and English) language preservation by enforcing a ban in his ministry on the use of what Germans working there think are English words and phrases.

Handy is one of them, like I said. Another favorite of mine that I hear in Berlin all the time is Coffee Togo. Well that’s how they pronounce it. I swear. Apparantly many Berliners are actually convinced that the coffee you can now get in those portable styrofoam cups to take along with you is from the country of Togo.

Another good one is life. You know, as in “Life Show?”

Or how about Pizza Hut? Many Germans pronounce it as the Transport Minister would expect them to and actually think that the place is called Pizza Hat.

So knock yourself out, Herr Ramsauer. Help preserve my language. You can crack down on abuse like this as often and as hard as you think necessary. Please. I mean, bitte.

Gegen den Mainstream zu leben, kann schließlich ganz schön in sein.

How can Muslims speak this way about Islam?

And not get listened to, I mean. Forget Sarrazin. More Muslim eggheads like this guy, please.

“In a sense, Islam is like a drug, like alcohol. A small amount can have a healing and inspiring effect, but when the believer reaches for the bottle of dogmatic faith in every situation, it gets dangerous. This high-proof form of Islam is what I’m talking about. It harms the individual and damages society. It inhibits integration, because this Islam divides the world into friends and enemies, into the faithful and the infidels.”

“I don’t like that expression (Islamophobe). A person who has a phobia is someone who harbors fantasies. But the dangers posed by Islamists are real.”

“You accuse your fellow Muslims of continuing to search for scapegoats.” “Yes, instead of seeking faults within themselves. Perhaps the process I experienced is the process Islam needs as a whole, namely that everyone looks at themselves critically and stops constantly blaming others for their own misery and feeling like a victim.”

“There are 1.4 billion Muslims. So what? The important thing is that in almost all countries with a Muslim majority, we see the decline of civilization and a stagnation of all forms of life. Islam has no convincing answers to the challenges of the 21st century. It is in intellectual, moral and cultural decline — a doomed religion, without self-awareness and without any options to act.”

“whenever Muslims seek to introduce Islamic studies into European schools or try to obtain nonprofit status for an Islamic organization, there is always talk of one Islam. The minute someone attacks the faith, they resort to a trick to stifle the criticism and disingenuously ask: Which Islam are you talking about?”

“My dream, in fact, is an enlightened Islam, without Sharia law and without jihad, without gender apartheid, proselytizing and the mentality of entitlement. A religion that is open to criticism and questions.”

“Most so-called reformers of Islam remind me of the band on the Titanic, which kept on playing even as the ship was sinking, so as to give the passengers the illusion of normalcy. The underlying problems are not addressed.”

“You criticize Muslims as a group for taking offence quickly and even savoring it. You have accused European liberal leftists of pursuing a “policy of appeasement” toward Islam. Why do you, as an academic, sometimes enjoy being the provocateur in a similar fashion to Sarrazin?” “You have to state your opinions clearly if you want to be heard. There are plenty of apologists for Islam.”

At least it wasn’t communist pornography

This has got to be the most insidious commi plot yet, or even ever. The German Communist Party in Essen (yes, it actually still exists) handed out pens to six-year-old kids that can project erotic images of women on walls and, well, I dunno, all over. And like, they even did it by accident.

Damn. I remember being pretty excited on my first day at school and all that but this really takes the cake, or Kuchen, if you prefer.

This truly is shocking and obscene. No, not the part about the pens so much (German sex ed starts really early over here anyway), I mean that the German Communist Party was allowed to hand out anything to six-year-old kids like that in the first place.

“The German Communist Party deeply regrets what has happened and is outraged that this kind of thing, which borders on pornography, can be purchased in normal shops.”

Of Rabbits and Women

I knew Germans were a nervous bunch and all, but geez. A German teacher has accused one of her German schoolgirl high schools pupils, as in before court, of drawing rabbits on the blackboard and telling fellow pupils that she (the teacher) was afraid of rabbits and would flip out just seeing one.

The teacher denied this, of course, then flipped out anyway and hasn’t been back to work since.

It’s about the principle of it all or something. Or was it the principal?

Die Deutsch- und Erdkundelehrerin hatte bereits 2008 eine andere Schülerin wegen der gleichen Sache verklagt.

Unfair?

The German education system? Hell yeah, it’s unfair. Only one in ten immigrant children ever make it the Abitur (the general qualification for university entrance).

But that’s not all that bad an average really, if you stop and think about it. Only one in three Germans ever make it that far either. Like I said, unfair.

Bei lediglich 2,9 Prozent der Studenten in Deutschland handle es sich um Ausländer, die in Deutschland Abitur gemacht haben.

“It’s all about how your body tolerates pain”

Anybody can run up the Empire State Building’s 1,576 stairs in roughly ten minutes and sixteen seconds.

But not many would be willing to do it twice. And like five times in a row?

Damn. That takes devotion. Or profound mental instability. Or maybe a little bit of both. But like they say, somebody’s got to do it – whoever they are.

At 10:30 a.m., a loud fog horn sounded to launch a mad dash from the lobby – where Dold grabbed an early lead and never looked down.

Sale is a bad word here

Or at least it’s a really annoying (nervig) and superfluous (überflüssig) one. That’s how the Association of the Friends of the German Language voted this year. They prefer the German word for sale, it seems. Whatever the hell that is.

And the word they liked for 2009 was Abwrackprämie (cash for clunkers), which is also a German word for sale, kind of.

I don’t take these folks all that seriously, though, nor should you. Their website doesn’t even offer an English version link thingy.

Der 1997 gegründete VDS mit mehr als 31.000 Mitgliedern bezeichnet sich selbst als „die weltweit größte Sprach-Bürgerbewegung“.

Lecture time

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be addressing the United States President and Congress later today.

They'll be a short quiz aftwards too.

A little background: The United States wants Germany and other NATO partners to make a bigger contribution to the war in Afghanistan and support tougher sanctions against Iran.

Germany, on the other hand, would like to see the United States make deeper cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, which some scientists say cause global warming.

Hmm, I wounder who’s going to get what first?

But first they’ll be a short commercial break: “She is expected to highlight the special postwar relationship between Germany and the United States and Washington’s role in helping bring down the Berlin Wall with its tough stance toward the Soviet Union.” Those were the days. When it came to taking tough stances, I mean.