Whaddyaknow? The first sentence of this translation (found AT FRANKFURT AIRPORT no less) actually doesn’t make me cringe!

Here’s something you’d be equally likely to exclaim in either a women’s studies seminar or a German class: Dude, what the fuck is up with gender?!

Slate’s most recent Lexicon Valley podcast covers just this topic. Without giving away too much, I’ll say that they do provide some background as to how the Indo-European language family acquired genders in the first place. Spoiler: Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because the universe hates you.

Not that I would fault anyone for thinking that way. After nearly 16 years of learning and speaking German, I still mess up genders. Beyond a handful of rules with very limited application, there is no logic to German genders. I’ve tried in vain to come up with rules to help myself remember. For awhile, I thought that nouns beginning with Ge- were all neuter. After all, there’s das Gemälde, das Gebäude, das Gedränge. Then I learned about die Gefahr and der Gefallen. Dammit. I also thought all dairy products might be feminine because they come from cows. Die Milch. Ok. Die Sahne. Great! Die Butter. Hell yeah! Der Käse, der Joghurt, der Rahm, das Obers. Fuckfuckfuckfuck!!!!!

French genders don’t hold a candle to German. For one thing, French only has two. Cry me a river. Slavic languages? For all the unnecessary complication they manage to have in the rest of their grammar, gender is relatively straightforward. Save for a few exceptions, the rule is as follows: Does it end in a consonant? Masculine. Does it end in an A? Feminine. Does it end in an E or O? Neuter. Does any of this work with German? Hell fucking no.

With German, you just have to learn them. It’s a neverending battle. On the other hand, I didn’t have to look up a single gender for the German words I used in this post. So don’t be discouraged! If you devote half of your life to the language, you might learn the genders of up to 12 words by heart. Success!

You know how when you’re talking about a person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant you just say “they” and then there are people who get all pearl-clutchy when you do that? Well, in Sweden it looks like they’ve canonized a gender-neutral pronoun, “hen”. Cool!

I think this article in Slate, however, is pretty pearl-clutchy in general when it comes to their reaction to how Sweden is trying to undo some of the damage inflicted on us by gender roles, but that’s not what I want to talk about because sometimes thinking about patriarchy depresses me. (Wait…only sometimes?) Instead, I’d like to take this opportunity to say my piece against ardent grammarians.

The following is a list of so-called “stylistic sins” that I refuse to apologize for:

• Using “they” when the gender of the person I’m talking about is unknown or irrelevant
• Ending a sentence with a preposition. Seriously, guys, get over it
• Oxford commas. You do it your way, I’ll do it mine
• Putting a period outside quotation marks when it’s supposed to apply to the whole sentence
• Probably some others that I can’t think of right now. 

On the other hand, there is also a number of things that I tend to get my own linguistic panties in a twist about:

• Not using the past participle. It’s “I have drunk”, not “I have drank”
• Not using the subjunctive in the precious few cases where you still can. We have to keep this alive, people! If we lose it, our language will become just a little less rich and expressive
• Hypercorrection vis-a-vis “I” versus “me”. Come on, it’s “between you and me”. Trust me on this one
• Ditto “who” and “whom”
• Again, probably a lot more that will come to me when I go to bed tonight that will keep me awake.

In my current job, I do avoid writing “they” and ending sentences in prepositions because our style guidelines prohibit it. Evenings and weekends though, all bets are off.

Regarding the subjunctive, I suspect that saying “If I was you” might be commonplace in some dialects of English, which I would never presume to correct. However, if you claim to speak standard English, then you must join me in the fight to keep the subjunctive mood alive!

Anyone else want to chime in?

A group of German linguists have chosen the best anglicism to enter the German language in the year 2011. The recipient of this controversial honor is not the self-righteous “occupy”. Rather unsurprisingly, it’s not “circeln” – that is, to add someone to a circle on Google+ – either. 2011’s Anglicism of the Year was instead a much more colorful choice, one that is rife with imagery and expressiveness. A word you downright miss when you’re trying to describe it in another language.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Anglizismus des Jahres 2011 is “der Shitstorm”.

“Shitstorm” is a damn good word. I really can’t fault the linguists who bestowed this title upon it. It’s vulgar enough to underline the kind of dirty, ad hominem attacks that characterize a good multiparty row, be it in the blogosphere or the Thanksgivingdinnertable-sphere. But this vulgarity is exactly what is missing when you import the word as-is into German. Even though the vast majority of Germans understand what it means, “shit” isn’t a German word, meaning that your average German child doesn’t fear being misheard by an adult when he or she tries to say “ship” with a mouthful of Twinkie. (Germans also don’t eat Twinkies, but that’s another story.) Nor has any German kid, when just ONCE trying to express their anger by saying that penultimate expletive, been met with a chorus of their peers saying “Awwwwwwwww! You said the s-word! I’m telling!” The taboo is therefore lost.

Which is why, according to Anatol Stefanowitsch, the head of the panel of linguists who made the decision, the word is acceptable in public German parlance. In English, we’re still restricted in the mainstream media to hinting at it by means of special characters and bleeps.

I learned a new word today. “Anti-mimesis”, coined by Oscar Wilde, is basically life imitating art. I wikipedia-d “life imitating art” because of the unfortunate resemblance my own life had this morning to this Shel Silverstein poem:

Something Missing

I remember I put on my socks,
I remember I put on my shoes.
I remember I put on my tie
That was painted
In beautiful purples and blues.
I remember I put on my coat,
To look perfectly grand at the dance,
Yet I feel there is something
I may have forgot—
What is it? What is it? …

While packing for my trek to London this weekend, I managed not to forget the little stuff like my Oyster card and UK sim card and yet somehow didn’t remember to pack pants. To make matters worse, today of all days I chose to wear a skirt to work that requires actual ladylike sitting positions and would make lounging in a park watching fireworks (as are our plans for Bonfire Night) most inconvenient.

Good thing I was planning to make a quick stop at home anyway before I head to the airport.

Here I am on ZDF on one of the hottest days of the year so far promoting Couchsurfing, one of my favorite hobbies. Fortunately I’ve never been too overly nervous about addressing a crowd, but speaking on camera is different. For awhile I felt like I’d forgotten about 80% of the German I knew, and hopefully I’m the only one who can sense the desperation in every pause as I search frantically for the right word.

For those of us who don’t speak German, I’ve taken the time to translate the report into English. You can find the translation here.

All in all, I’m happy with how it turned out though, and I hope Aude and Mathieu, the couchsurfers who were in the video with me, are as well.

I grew up in the not-so-tony area known as Downriver Detroit. However, I failed my Downriverite exam in Strasbourg on Thursday when I failed to immediately identify this animal. On the other hand, a true Downriverite would probably also want to eat this guy for Sunday dinner.

So yeah, the muskrat has been reintroduced to Europe.

German: Bisamratte (more commonly: Wasserratte)

French: rat musqué (but I swear the guy I asked pronounced it “remsky”)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been practicing my French with a Parisian girl who is interested in improving her English. We meet up once or twice a week and divide our time spent speaking the two languages relatively equally. It’s been working quite well, and I’ve already noticed an improvement, albeit slight, in my fluency. Last night, my improvements were put to the test when we serendipitously ran into several of her French friends, who all proceeded to chatter away with each other simultaneously and at lightning speed, as friends who share the same mother tongue are wont to do.

For this Anglophone, it felt like being thrown to the wolves. I sat there, wide-eyed and trembling, and listened to this group of (really lovely) Frogs laugh and frenchyfrenchyfrench away at one another while I tried my damndest to keep up. My friend did a valiant job of keeping me up to speed and repeating things I didn’t understand, which paid off because eventually I found myself integrated in the conversation. I think I even made a joke. It might have even been a funny joke, although the margaritas probably deserve most of the credit for that.

The big reward was this morning, when I awoke (sans hangover, yay!) to the realization that the result of last night’s linguistic performance was a series of dreams in French.

Ladies and gents, I am AWESOME!

Other things I learned last night:

• The term for septic tank is fosse septique. (Plus I learned several more German words for the same thing, all of which translate approximately to “filth room”. The next time I actually need this word in German, I’ll be sticking to the tried-and-true – and much more hygienic-sounding – Kleinkläranlage).
• Starchy foods are referred to as féculents, I guess because you’ll be needing your fosse septique when you eat them.
• Since I’ve gotten back into shape, 2 margaritas is really my limit for a weeknight.

ekkentros:

So, my intention to forever be an innocuous tumblr lurker has been foiled by my inability to contain my RAGE at seeing certain well-intentioned but ridiculous posts.

In response to the post I reblogged earlier, someone suggested that the OP didn’t speak English as a native language and thus the…

This cake? SO not dry. Pardon my less-than-professional decorating and photography skills.