Occasional musings, Geistesblitze, photos, drawings etc. by a "resident alien", who has landed on American soil from a far-away planet called "Germany".
Die Villanelle ist eine ungemein anspruchsvolle Gedichtform: 6 Strophen mit dem Reimschema ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA (d.h. es gibt nur zwei Reime), wobei die erste und dritte Zeile der ersten Strophe abwechselnd die nächsten 4 Strophen beenden und zusammen die letzten beiden Zeilen der letzten Strophe bilden. Der unermüdlich wiederholte Reim und die immer wiederkehrenden Zeilen haben einen fast hypnotischen Effekt—sie schaffen einen Gedankenkreis, aus dem es keinen Ausweg zu geben scheint.
Eine Villanelle zu schreiben, die nicht gekünstelt klingt, ist eine Herausforderung. Der hab ich mich gestellt, allerdings in einem eher humorvollen Zusammenhang, als Hommage für Ror Wolf, den von mir sehr geschätzten Stammvater des deutschen Fußballgedichts.
I am watching the German Bundesliga on ESPN+.
The commentators are typically fluent in German and do not hesitate to insert German terms into their remarks, when they cannot think of an equivalent word in English or when they want to add some local color (or simply show off).
Some of these terms are common words used metaphorically. But most of them have been coined specifically for the soccer context. Whatever their origin, they tend to be very expressive, and I started a collection (click on the link below).
A photo album showing selected images taken during trips my wife, Laraine, and I made to countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The travel photos are interspersed with pictures we took of each other or taken of us by others. The subtext is to show how two people grow old together.
For the first time, I'm introducing a WoM that does not appear in the Duden, the official dictionary of the German language—it's an invention of mine, triggered by the life my wife and I have been living during the current pandemic. The term is formed after Einsiedler, the German word for a hermit, which consists of the components ein (one) and Siedler (settler): It's a "one-settler", a person living by himself in almost complete isolation. Einsiedlerin is the female form.
Now, zwei is the German word for "two", and a Zweisiedler denotes a person who lives with another person in almost complete isolation, and that's what I have become over the last year and a half. My wife is the corresponding Zweisiedlerin.
Our contacts with other people have been reduced to the absolute minimum—doctors, sales staff, repair people, and the occasional visit with a friend, no longer masked because everybody, and I really mean everybody, among our acquaintances has been fully vaccinated. Of course, the relative isolation of our house, on its 3.5 acres of land and surrounded by woods and, closer by, a garden needing a lot of attention, encourages this kind of life. But the funny thing is, we like it—we feel the world at large is in such a sorry state that retreating from it is an obvious choice (if one can afford it), and that's what we have in common with the original hermits when they chose to live all by themselves in the desert or on a mountain top.
Addendum (9/15/2021): My friend Thomas Kreifelts sent me this e-mail (m.t.): Yes, really very nice. The meaning becomes immediately obvious after months of the pandemic.
But as far as the priority of word creation is concerned, I have to pour a little water into your wine, because "Zweisiedler" is already an entry in the Grimms' dictionary [by the famous Grimm brothers—U.F.] (vol. XVI 1954) with Jean Paul, Nietzsche and Peter Rosegger given as sources, all 19th century:
Zweisiedler.
I liked Rosegger best.
The meaning these authors assign to the term is somewhat different in each case (and from mine), but each of them apparently took delight in forming a tongue-in-cheek analogy to an established term, and since at least two of them are considered masters of German prose, I am not at all saddened by the fact that I can no longer consider myself the inventor of the word—rather, I am flattered by finding myself in such distinguished company, and I'm grateful that Thom pointed this out to me.
There is an obvious reason for the present WoM, the UEFA 2020 soccer tournament taking place, in spite of its official name, right now, in the summer of 2021. Schlachten is the plural of Schlacht (battle) as in Schlacht von Waterloo (Battle of Waterloo). Bummler is a noun derived from the verb bummeln, to dawdle or, and that’s the meaning in the present term, to stroll in a leisurely fashion. A Schlachtenbummler, then, is a person who strolls from battle to battle, where the battles in question are typically not of a military nature.
The term is used most frequently to denote soccer fans who travel from town to town to watch matches, especially those involving their favorite team. The general connotation is that they behave peacefully—nobody would call soccer hooligans Schlachtenbummler (the plural is the same as the singular): Yes, they look for battles, literally, but they want to participate in them, not just watch them. The accompanying photo shows my two brothers and me as Schlachtenbummler during the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
An aside: There is an obvious relation, both linguistically and semantically, between Schlacht and the verb schlachten (to slaughter). But this does not mean that one is derived from the other; rather, both derive from a Middle High German word for "kill" [Source: Online Duden].
In the past, I created posts on which soccer fans among my friends and I could discuss and comment on the games played during a concurrent soccer tournament. It was great fun, and I am doing this again for the UEFA Euro 2020 competition from June 11 to July 11, which was delayed by a year due to the pandemic.
For the group phase, Germay finds herself in the mother of all "groups of death", Group F with, aside from Germany, the reigning World Champion, France, and the reigning European Champion, Portugal. Hungary will complete the quartet.
In the old days, only the first- and second-placed teams of each group advanced to the elimination rounds. This would have meant that Germany would have to finish ahead of France or Portugal in Group F to get beyond the group phase, a daunting prospect given the decidedly mixed record of the German side over the past several years. But UEFA, in its wisdom, decided in 2016 to increase the total number of participating teams from 16 to 24, which makes it necessary to start the elimination phase with a round of 16 that also includes the 4 third-placed teams with the best records. That is to say, 4 points in the group phase (1 victory and 1 draw in 3 matches) will probably be enough to advance. In fact, even 3 points may be enough, as demonstrated by Portugal during Euro 2016: They tied three times during the group phase, advanced to the elimination round as a third-placed team, and won the tournament in the end! And so, even a team with a checkered recent record like Germany's has a chance to advance beyond the group phase.
I will start the discussion in my first comment with a few additional observations about the German side.
"One thing could be said about Ulrich with certainty: He loved mathematics because of the people who could not stand it." (Robert Musil, The Man Without Properties, m.t.)
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