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 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:26:27 MST