Would Any Man Want To Die In A
Battle Which Was Called By So Tame A Term As A SCHLACHT?
Or would not a consumptive 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 - Hoelle - 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.
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