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.

Found Art Around the World

I have produced my first ebook, a collection of photographs I took around the world. The underlying message is that "art makes us see things we did not see before". For more details, hit the link below.

Kindle version, viewable on the Kindle Fire or a Kindle Reader tailored to a specific platform, free to download:
Mac Reader • PC Reader • iPad Reader

iBooks version, prepared with iBooks Author specifically for the Apple store.

In the comments section below, I'd love to hear from people who got the book.

Word of the Month: Spaltpilz

Here's another mushroom (Pilz), but this one is less endearing than the Glückspilz we dealt with in the past. Spalten means "to split" or, if you are in the mood, "to rend asunder". Spaltpilz used to be a botanical term for a bacterium, which, after all, multiplies by splitting. In biology, this term has been replaced by Bakterie in German, but Spaltpilz remains very much in the language in a metaphorical meaning, to denote someone who works hard to split a group into factions.

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

Shitstorm hits Germany

I mentioned briefly in the 'Bout them Germans post (Nov. 2011) that Michael Lewis had alleged a German obsession with excrement—actually, Lewis refers to the work of someone else, but I haven't followed that paper trail yet. My friend Esther just referred me to an article that makes one wonder anyway: A jury of academics selected "shitstorm" to become the "anglicism of the year" in Germany—apparently, it will fill a gap in the language. [On a personal note, I have often regretted that German has not equivalent for "The shit hits the fan", and I have been using the phrase untranslated.]

Now, what does that tell us about the comparative scatological inclinations of English and German speakers? I don't know at first glance. Yes, the jury selected "shitstorm" when it could have selected "cloud" or "occupy". But this does not necessarily mean that Germans always select the scatological term, given a choice—it may mean that there is, in fact, a dearth in the language when it comes to such terms.

Anyway, some day I may find the time to get back to Lewis and his source.