可怕的德语

马克·吐温

摘自《漫游欧洲》

略知皮毛，天下皆兄弟。——《箴言》三十二章七节

我经常去参观海德堡城堡里的珍品收藏，有一天我用我的德语让看守大吃一惊。我完全用那种语言和他交谈。他非常感兴趣；在我说了一会儿之后，他说我的德语非常罕见，可能是一种 "unique"；并且想把它添加到他的博物馆里。

如果他知道我为了掌握这门艺术付出了多少代价，他也会知道，购买它会让任何收藏家破产。那时，Harris 和我一直在努力学习德语好几个星期了，虽然我们取得了很大的进步，但这是在极大的困难和烦恼下完成的，因为我们的三位老师在这期间去世了。没有学过德语的人无法想象它是一种多么令人费解的语言。

当然，没有另一种语言像它这样马虎和没有系统，这样滑溜和难以掌握。一个人在其中被冲来冲去，以最无助的方式；当他最终认为他已经掌握了一条规则，这条规则提供了坚实的基础，让他可以在一般的愤怒和十种词性的混乱中休息一下时，他翻过一页，读到："让学生仔细注意以下 EXCEPTIONS。" 他浏览一遍，发现规则的例外情况比实例还要多。因此，他又一次落水，去寻找另一座 Ararat 山，却发现另一片流沙。这曾经是，并且仍然是我的经验。每次我以为我已经掌握了这四个令人困惑的 "cases" 中的一个时，一个看似无关紧要的介词就会闯入我的句子，穿着可怕和令人怀疑的力量，并从我脚下崩塌地面。例如，我的书在询问一只特定的鸟——(它总是在询问对任何人来说都没有任何重要性的事情)："Where is the bird?" 现在，根据这本书，这个问题的答案是，这只鸟因为下雨而等在 blacksmith shop 里。当然，没有鸟会这样做，但你必须坚持这本书。很好，我开始计算这个答案的德语。我必然地从错误的结尾开始，因为这是德语的思路。我对自己说，"REGEN (rain) 是阳性的——或者可能是阴性的——或者可能是中性的——现在查找太麻烦了。因此，它是 DER (the) Regen，或 DIE (the) Regen，或 DAS (the) Regen，这取决于当我查找时它会变成哪种性别。为了科学的利益，我将假设它是阳性来计算它。很好——那么 THE rain 是 DER Regen，如果它只是处于被 MENTIONED 的静态状态，没有扩大或讨论——Nominative case；但如果这种雨以一种普遍的方式落在地面上，那么它就被明确地定位了，它在 DOING SOMETHING——也就是说，RESTING (这是德国语法对做某事的一种想法)，这会将雨投入到 Dative case 中，并使其成为 DEM Regen。然而，这场雨并没有休息，而是在积极地做某事——它正在下——可能会干扰鸟——这表明 MOVEMENT，这会使其滑入 Accusative case 并将 DEM Regen 更改为 DEN Regen。" 在完成了这件事的语法 horoscope 之后，我自信地回答并用德语声明，这只鸟停留在 blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) DEN Regen。" 然后，老师让我轻柔地下来，并指出，每当单词 "wegen" 掉进一个句子时，它 ALWAYS 会将该主题投入到 GENITIVE case 中，而不管后果如何——因此，这只鸟停留在 blacksmith shop "wegen DES Regens。"

注意：后来，一位更高的权威告诉我，有一种 "exception" 允许人们在某些特殊和复杂的情况下说 "wegen DEN Regen"，但这种 exception 不会扩展到除了 rain 之外的任何东西。

有十种词性，它们都很麻烦。在德国报纸上，一个 average 的句子是一种崇高而令人印象深刻的奇观；它占据了四分之一的 column；它包含了所有十种词性——不是按照正常的顺序，而是混合在一起；它主要是由作者当场构建的复合词组成的，在任何 dictionary 中都找不到——六个或七个单词压缩成一个，没有 joint 或 seam——也就是说，没有 hyphens；它讨论了十四或十五个不同的主题，每个主题都包含在自己的 parenthesis 中，这里那里还有额外的 parentheses， making pens with pens：最后，所有的 parentheses 和 reparentheses 都被 massed together 在一对 king-parentheses 之间，其中一个放在 majestic 的句子的第一行，另一个放在它的最后一行中间——AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB，你第一次发现这个人一直在说什么；在 verb 之后——仅仅是为了 ornament，就我所知——作者铲入 "HABEN SIND GEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN"，或者类似的词，然后 monument 就完成了。我猜想这个 closing hurrah 本质上是一个人在签名上添加的 flourish——不是 necessary，但 pretty。当你把德国书放在 looking-glass 前面或者站在你的 head 上时——这样可以 reverse the construction——阅读德国书很容易，但我认为，学会阅读和理解德国报纸对于外国人来说永远是不可能的。

然而，即使是德国书也不能完全避免 Parenthesis distemper 的攻击——尽管它们通常很 mild，只能覆盖几行，因此，当你最终到达 verb 时，它会给你带来一些意义，因为你能够记住很多以前发生的事情。现在，这是一句来自 popular 并且 excellent 的德国 novel 的句子——其中有一个 slight 的 parenthesis。我将做一个 perfectly literal 的 translation，并添加 parenthesis-marks 和一些 hyphens 来帮助读者——尽管在 original 中没有 parenthesis-marks 或 hyphens，读者只能尽力地摸索到遥远的 verb：

"但是当他，在街上， the (in-satin-and-silk-covered- now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) government counselor's wife MET," 等等，等等。[1]

这是来自 Mrs. Marlitt 的《THE OLD MAMSELLE'S SECRET》。那句话是按照 most approved 的 German model 构造的。你 observe 那 verb 离 reader 的 base of operations 有多远；好吧，在德国报纸上，他们把他们的 verb 放在 next page 上；我听说有时在 stringing along the exciting preliminaries 和 parentheses 之后，他们匆忙起来，不得不 go to press 而没有到达 verb。当然，那时，reader 处于 very exhausted 和 ignorant 的状态。

我们也有 Parenthesis disease 在我们的 literature 中；而且每天都可以在我们的书和报纸上看到它的 cases：但是在我们这里，它是 unpracticed 的 writer 或 cloudy 的 intellect 的 mark 和 sign，而在 Germans 那里，它无疑是 practiced 的 pen 的 mark 和 sign，以及那种 luminous 的 intellectual fog 的存在，这种 fog 代表着这些人的 clearness。因为当然，它不是 NOT clearness——它必然不能是 clearness。即使是 jury 也有足够的 penetration 去发现这一点。一个 writer 的 ideas 一定是 good deal confused 的，good deal out of line 和 sequence 的，当他开始说一个人在街上遇到了 counselor 的 wife 时，然后在如此 simple 的 undertaking 中止住了这些 approaching 的人，让他们站着不动，直到他 jots down an inventory of the woman's dress。这显然是 absurd。它让一个人想起那些 dentists，他们通过用 forceps 抓住你的 tooth 来确保你 instant 和 breathless 的 interest，然后站在那里 drawl through a tedious anecdote，然后才给出 dreaded 的 jerk。Parentheses 在 literature 和 dentistry 中都是 in bad taste 的。

The Germans 还有另一种 parenthesis，他们通过把一个 verb 分成两半，然后把一半放在 exciting 的 chapter 的开头，把 OTHER HALF 放在它的结尾来制造它。有人能 conceive of anything more confusing than that 吗？这些东西被称为 "separable verbs"。The German grammar 遍布 separable verbs；而且一个 verb 的两部分 spread apart 的距离越远，crime 的 author 就越 pleased with his performance。一个 favorite 的是 REISTE AB——意思是 departed。这是一个我从 novel 中 culled 并 reduced to English 的 example：

"The trunks being now ready, he DE- 在亲吻了他的 mother 和 sisters，并再一次 pressing to his bosom 他的 adored Gretchen 之后，她穿着 simple 的 white muslin，在她的 rich brown hair 的 ample folds 中戴着一朵 tuberose，feebly tottered down the stairs，仍然 pale 来自 the terror 和 excitement of the past evening，但 longing to lay her poor aching head 又一次 upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself，PARTED。"

然而，在 separable verbs 上 dwell 太多是不好的。一个人一定会 lose his temper early；而且如果他 sticks to the subject，而且 will not be warned，它最终会 either soften his brain 或 petrify it。Personal pronouns 和 adjectives 在这种 language 中是一种 fruitful 的 nuisance，而且应该被 left out。例如，同样的声音，SIE，意思是 YOU，它也意味着 SHE，它也意味着 HER，它也意味着 IT，它也意味着 THEY，它也意味着 THEM。Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six——而且一个 poor little weak thing of only three letters at that。但 mainly，想想 never knowing speaker 试图 convey 哪些含义的 exasperation。This explains why，每当一个人对我 says SIE 时，如果是个 stranger，我通常会 try to kill him。

现在 observe the Adjective。这里有一个 case， simplicity 会是一个 advantage；因此，为了 no other reason，this language 的 inventor complicated it all he could。当我们 wish to speak of our "good friend or friends" 时，在我们的 enlightened 的 tongue 中，我们 stick to the one form，并且没有 trouble 或 hard feeling 关于它；但是 with the German tongue，它是 different 的。当一个 German gets his hands on an adjective 时，他会 decline 它，并且 keep on declining 它，直到 common sense 都 decline out of it。它和 Latin 一样 bad。例如，他 says：

SINGULAR

Nominative——Mein gutER Freund，my good friend。 Genitives——MeinES GutEN FreundES，of my good friend。 Dative——MeinEM gutEN Freund，to my good friend。 Accusative——MeinEN gutEN Freund，my good friend。

PLURAL

N.——MeinE gutEN FreundE，my good friends。 G.——MeinER gutEN FreundE，of my good friends。 D.——MeinEN gutEN FreundEN，to my good friends。 A.——MeinE gutEN FreundE，my good friends。

现在让 asylum 的 candidate try to memorize 这些 variations，看看他很快就会被 elected。One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them。我已经 shown it is what a bother to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third of the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective to be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Difficult?--troublesome?--these words cannot describe it. I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one is casually referring to a house, HAUS, or a horse, PFERD, or a dog, HUND, he spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to them in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary E and spells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added E often signifies the plural, as the S does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a month making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake; and on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford loss, has bought and paid for two dogs and only got one of them, because he ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he really supposed he was talking plural--which left the law on the seller's side, of course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore a suit for recovery could not lie.

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from its lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea, because by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the minute you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake the name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of time trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always do mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a man's name.

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:

"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? "Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. "Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera."

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female--tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears it--for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a man may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any woman or cow in the land.

In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not--which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife is neither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description; that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A German speaks of an Englishman as the ENGLÄNDER; to change the sex, he adds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman-- ENGLÄNDERINN. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engländerinn,"--which means "the she-Englishwoman." I consider that that person is over-described.

Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade his tongue to refer to things as "he" and "she," and "him" and "her," which it has been always accustomed to refer to it as "it." When he even frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the right places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it is no use-- the moment he begins to speak his tongue files the track and all those labored males and females come out as "its." And even when he is reading German to himself, he always calls those things "it," where as he ought to read in this way:

TALE OF THE FISHWIFE AND ITS SAD FATE [2]

It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye. and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth--will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin--which he eats, himself, as his Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot--she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even SHE is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys IT; she attacks its Hand and destroys HER also; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys HER also; she attacks its Body and consumes HIM; she wreathes herself about its Heart and IT is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment SHE is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck--He goes; now its Chin-- IT goes; now its Nose--SHE goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses--is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.

There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look and sound between words which have no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the foreigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the German. Now there is that troublesome word VERMÄHLT: to me it has so close a resemblance--either real or fancied--to three or four other words, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the latter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. To increase the difficulty there are words which SEEM to resemble each other, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they did. For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let, to lease, to hire); and the word VERHEIRATHEN (another way of saying to marry). I heard of an Englishman who knocked at a man's door in Heidelberg and proposed, in the best German he could command, to "verheirathen" that house. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize the first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word which means a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the placing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to ASSOCIATE with a man, or to AVOID him, according to where you put the emphasis--and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place and getting into trouble.

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. SCHLAG, for example; and ZUG. There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in the dictonary, and a column and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT meaning--that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin with SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER, which means bilge-water--and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which means mother-in-law.

Just the same with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT mean--when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed just with these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish? The German word ALSO is the equivalent of the English phrase "You know," and does not mean anything at all--in TALK, though it sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an ALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to GET out.

Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a SCHLAG into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a ZUG after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they SHOULD fail, let him simply say ALSO! and this will give him a moment's chance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your conversational gun it is always best to throw in a SCHLAG or two and a ZUG or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with THEM. Then you blandly say ALSO, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of "Also's" or "You knows."

In my note-book I find this entry:

July 1.--In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient--a North German from near Hamburg; but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The sad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.

That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the most curious and notable features of my subject--the length of German words. Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen. Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten. Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.

These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page--and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here rare some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen. Alterthumswissenschaften. Kinderbewahrungsanstalten. Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen. Wiedererstellungbestrebungen. Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.

Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape--but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere--so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words with the hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some of the above examples. "Freundshaftsbezeigungen" seems to be "Friendship demonstrations," which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying "demonstrations of friendship." "Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen" seems to be "Independencedeclarations," which is no improvement upon "Declarations of Independence," so far as I can see. "Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen" seems to be "General-statesrepresentativesmeetings," as nearly as I can get at it--a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for "meetings of the legislature," I judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our literature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a things as a "never-to-be-forgotten" circumstance, instead of cramping it into the simple and sufficient word "memorable" and then going calmly about our business as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not content to embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument over it.

But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This is the shape it takes: instead of saying "Mr. Simmons, clerk of the county and district courts, was in town yesterday," the new form put it thus: "Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in town yesterday." This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward sound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: "MRS. Assistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residence yesterday for the season." That is a case of really unjustifiable compounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confers a title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these little instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal German system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:

"In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, the inthistownstandingtavern called 'The Wagoner' was downburnt. When the fire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew the parent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest ITSELF caught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-Stork into the Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread."

Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos out of that picture--indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. This item is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner, but I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting.

"ALSO!" If I had not shown that the German is a difficult language, I have at least intended to do so. I have heard of an American student who was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered promptly: "I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase--'ZWEI GLAS'" (two glasses of beer). He paused for a moment, reflectively; then added with feeling: "But I've got that SOLID!"

And if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating study, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard lately of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no longer--the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and healing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was only the SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; [3] and so, at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died.

I think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode must be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this character have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell, groan; battle, hell. These are magnificent words; the have a force and magnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their German equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep with, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for superior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT? Or would not a comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in a shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word GEWITTER was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of the several German equivalents for explosion--AUSBRUCH. Our word Toothbrush is more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could do worse than import it into their language to describe particularly tremendous explosions with. The German word for hell--Hölle--sounds more like HELLY than anything else; therefore, how necessary chipper, frivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go there, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?

Having pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The capitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this virtue stands another--that of spelling a word according to the sound of it. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any German word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language if a student should inquire of us, "What does B, O, W, spell?" we should be obliged to reply, "Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if off by itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out what it signifies--whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod of one's head, or the forward end of a boat."

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, respose, and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the SOUND of the words is correct--it interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart.

The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the right one. they repeat it several times, if they choose. That is wise. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a paragraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak enough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates exactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Repetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse.

There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly about their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind of person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very well, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper suggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I have devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and critical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in my ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have conferred upon me.

In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the plurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case, except he discover it by accident--and then he does not know when or where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how he is going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an ornamental folly--it is better to discard it.

In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range--you only cripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye.

Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue--to swear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things in a vigorous ways. [4]

Fourthly, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordingly to the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else.

Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not hang a string of those useless "haven sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden seins" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a speech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and should be discarded.

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis