Euro 2012

I've arrived in Germany and will watch the competition with my knowledgeable brothers and friends. I will describe my impressions as the drama unfolds and invite readers to join the conversation.

A few remarks up-front on the mood here when it comes to the chances of the German team. Last year ended on a high when Germany convincingly beat the Netherlands in a friendly 3:0. Together with the impressive way in which the side had played during the qualifiers, where they won 30 matches in a row, this victory generated an almost boundless optimism in the country. However, this mood has become much more guarded because of a series of setbacks that happened since the start of 2012. The team lost two friendlies, first to France at the beginning of the year and then to Switzerland, where the second loss was particularly embarrassing. In both matches, the defense (which used to be the strong suit of German teams in the past) proved vulnerable and even now, two positions in the back four (the Viererkette - chain of four - as it's called in German) are still open, an unheard of situation for a German team. [See also my post from last December!]

True, the Bayern Munich players who form the backbone of the German side were missing from the team that lost to Switzerland. But this is small consolation because the psychological makeup of these very players suffered a severe blow when they lost the final of the Champions League, the most prestigious annual team competition in Europe, to Chelsea of England on May 19. The Bayern players were clearly in shock afterwards because they had been the better team throughout the game and gave the victory away on several occasions, most spectacularly in the final penalty shootout. The whole nation is asking itself: Did the Bayern players have enough time to get over it and be at their best again only a few weeks later?

If we look at the bright side (remember, I'm in the Rhineland where one always looks at the bright side!): It's these very questions that create a palpable sense of suspense in the country now that the competition is about to start.

Word of the Month: Landpomeranze

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Index

Land means, in this connection, "countryside" (as the opposite of "city"), and a Pomeranze is a Seville or bitter orange (the one used in making marmalade). Hitched together, they refer to a girl or young woman from the countryside who has not yet learned how to behave like a city slicker. In particular, her unfashionably rosy cheeks betray where she came from.



Nowadays, the term can be used as a putdown of provincials of either sex. English "hayseed" has pretty much the same meaning.

[Source: Wild Things in the German Language: Kindle version | iBooks version]

Wild Things now available as paperback ...

... at the Create Space store.

I've now explored self-publishing using various venues: iBooks Author and Kindle Direct Publishing for digital books; and Create Space, an Amazon affiliate, for the above paperback version, which will be sold also in the Amazon store. Since most of the material was readily available through work I had done before, I could concentrate on the technicalities of the software platforms I had to use, rather than worrying about content. This helped me greatly in my efforts; i.e., it kept me sane;-)

Found Art Around the World now an iBook

Finally, more than two months after I submitted it, the iBooks version is also available!

And if I may say so myself, it looks great on an iPad;-)

Word of the Month: Oberlehrer

Word of the Month: Index

Sie wissen nichts, aber wissen alles besser. (They know nothing, but know everything better.) Comment by Czech students after being visited, during the anti-Soviet revolt of 1968, by a delegation of students from West Berlin, who had immediately proceeded to lecture the Czechs about everything they were doing wrong.

A Lehrer is a teacher. Ober, as a prefix, can mean several things. In front of geographical names, for instance, it means “upper”, as in Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria). In front of words indicating a profession, it indicates a senior rank. Thus, an Oberlehrer is a senior or head teacher. The position no longer exists in the German educational system. But the word remains very much in the language as a derogatory term for an obnoxious know-it-all who lectures and corrects people, even when he was not asked to do so, and tends to do this in a tone veering between smugness and condescension—the infamous Oberlehrerton. (I use “he” because I never met a female Oberlehrer.)

I have a particular dislike for Oberlehrer types because of what my wife and I experienced when we were living in West Berlin during the 1970s. She is American, and the Oberlehrer (the plural is the same as the singular) in the left-liberal milieu I used to move in tried their best to make her life miserable. As soon as they learned she was an American, they would launch into long (and largely uninformed) lectures about everything that was wrong with her country. We reached a point where we wouldn’t go to parties anymore and decided, in the end, to move back to the US (where we had met as graduate students).

All of this was vividly brought back to me a week ago when I posted an announcement about my latest ebook, Wild Things in the German Language (see column on the right), on an (American) blog targeted at Americans interested in learning German. I did not know that it was also a playground for German Oberlehrer. No sooner had I posted my announcement than two of them started to chastise me for the bad English in my book. This came as a surprise to me because my English tends to get compliments from Americans for its clarity and grace. And sure enough, when I looked at the particular complaints I received in a lengthy e-mail from one of the Germans, I realized they were all wrong—no, not all of them: I had misspelled “scaredy cat” in my book—so shoot me!  [more in my first comment]

Apparently, blogs have given Oberlehrer an entire new venue to regale people with lectures they did not ask for. My advice: Avoid those blogs because you cannot argue with Oberlehrer—they are loath to admitting mistakes and always try to have the last word.

PS.  Clearly, this post is longer and more heartfelt than my usual Word-of-the-Month posts—I hope readers will understand the reasons why.

Addendum (3/5/2015) for people able to read German. I just read an article that reflects on the love affair between social media and German Oberlehrer: Diskussionskultur im Netz. Deutschland, eine Belehrtenrepublik. I agree!

Wild Things in the German Language

I've made my second eBook in a Kindle version.

The book collects my Word-of-the-Month drawings, including several that haven't been published yet. It's intended for readers interested in German or students learning German who want to have some fun learning new words in that language.

If you do not have a Kindle, Kindle Readers simulating it are available for common platforms:
Mac Reader • PC Reader • iPad Reader.

I'd love to hear in the comments section below from readers who got the book.

Word of the Month: Gnadenbrot

Gnade means "grace" or "mercy", and Brot means "bread". The term refers to the charity someone receives in recognition of past service. I love the concreteness of the term: I always picture an old watchdog—half-blind, hard of hearing, and with bad joints—who can no longer perform his duties, but is still fed and cared for because of the dedication to his job he has shown in the past.

Addendum (5/22/12). A friend just sent me this by e-mail (m.t.):
"Apropos your associations with Gnadenbrot: I had exactly the same and a vague memory of the origin: Grimm Brothers, Fairy Tales, no. 48, "Old Sultan," which starts like this:

A farmer had a faithful dog called Sultan, who had grown old and lost all his teeth so that he could no longer hold anything fast. One day the farmer was standing with his wife before the front door and said, "Tomorrow I'll shoot Old Sultan, he is no longer of any use." His wife, who felt pity for the faithful animal, answered, "Because he has served us for so many years and faithfully stood by us, we might well give him his keep [Gnadenbrot in the original!]." "Nonsense!" said the man. "You are not right in your head. He has not a tooth left in his mouth, and not a thief will be afraid of him; now he may be off. If he has served us, he has had good feeding for it." ...

As we know, it all ends well."

For the Grimm quote, I modified a translation of 1884 by M. Taylor. I, too, could not think of a way to render Gnadenbrot more faithfully in English without sounding awkward. Anyway, there is a good chance that this story also is the source for my association of Gnadenbrot with an old watch dog because courtesy of my grandfather, I grew up with the Grimm Brothers.