wish list from Germany

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Persil currently offers its Gold Edition. Don't think there's any difference - apart from the Gold logo on the packaging. But (and for what it's worth) it come with a nice golden measuring cup. This is obviously the large cup that goes up to 250 ml, which comes with the non-concentrated version ( -> with fillers) of Persil powder.

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Also new

Terra Aktiv liquid laundry detergent - for colors and whites. Terra Aktiv is Henkel's new like of eco-friendly cleaning products: liquid detergent, window cleaner, bathroom cleaner, floor cleaner and washing-up liquid.

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"Well thnk about it..if you wash it in a tiny machine, boil it to death and spin it to within an inch of it's life, it MAY just come out wrinkled. Ditto line-dry or a tiny Euro dryer."

As opposed to being shredded in a top loader and having the creases fried in by a boiling hot, uni-directional american dryer?

Matt
 
Da weiß man, was man hat....

Oops, sorry if weiß is now weiss under the new Rechtschreibung rules, but when I studied German, it was WEIß!!

Funny how a $1 vegetable peeler here is a big deal in Germany. We take Hershey's for granted, for us Lindt is a big deal. You CAN buy Persil from stores that sell Miele products (Miele vacuum cleaner stores are not uncommon here, and they sell Persil even though they don't sell Miele washers or dryers), but be prepared to pay $50 for 2 kilo box. Enough for 50-100 washes.

Last time at Rewe in Dortmund, I was explaining to my host (auf deutsch) that "in USA ist Persil eigentlich nicht zu kaufen...." and the customers in the aisle were listening in disbelief. Disbelief that it isn't sold through normal channels in USA and disbelief that people actually go to the trouble to bring it back home to USA. What they may not understand is that travel to/from North America allows two pieces of luggage, 23 kgs each. Not 20 kgs total as within Europe. So since the luggage is empty after giving away the Hershey's chocolate, Costco Egyptian towels, Halloween decorations and candy, ZipLock plastic bags, Bounce dryer sheets, etc., etc., to one's Germann friends, you may as well fill the luggage with Lindt, WMF, and Persil products.

The gift people here seem to like the most is the WMF Tortenmesser, we simply don't have wide cake knives with a sharp edge for cutting through a cake (we have them, but with dull edges) or torte. I explain that "Kaffee und Kuchen" is an art form in Germany, almost as complex as the Japanese tea ceremony. Essential elements include:

---linen tablecloth
---best porcelain
---often candles are lit
---Tchibo or Kaffee Hag coffee
---at least three types of cake or pastry from a Konditorei, or else something homemade (Apfelkuchen, Plaumkuchen, etc.).
---Sahne (whipped cream) is mandatory
---it is perfectly acceptable to gossip about relatives, neighbors, or friends who are not present
---the whole thing lasts a minimum of two hours and sometimes can go on all afternoon and evening.

In USA we have the concept of "Kaffe Klatsch",

coffee klatch - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org en.wiktionary.org

but shorter in duration and not as fancy. Meeting at Starbucks to chat over a cup of coffee and no pastry or cake--conditions that would not be tolerated in Germany--- still qualifies as a Kaffe Klatsch (coffee break).

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~As opposed to being shredded in a top loader and having the creases fried in by a boiling hot, uni-directional american dryer?

If the dryer is big enough, it irons the articles for you, and it doesn't NEED to reverse direction!

Your machines are said to wash satisfactorily with fewer resources (well except lots of time and heat) with ours you just don't have to iron......

(Ducks and runs!)
Sorry. Didn't meant to strike a nerve!
 
Kaffee oder brauner Abspülwasser

Jim, I take the position of Der Spiegel. When the Neurechtschreibung makes sense, (like using commas the same way as in English), I follow it.

When it is stupid beyond belief, I refuse to follow it. I can live with Delfin and Stengel if I simply have to, but this nonsense about muss instead of muß and dass instead of daß or, as you pointed out, Weiss for Weiß???!!!

Nein.

Dag-nab it, it's German and not Swiss-German.

Aber Hallo!

Anyway, here's a wonderful, simple cake recipe I love:

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Die neue Rechtschreibung

I think it was useful to deal with all of the non-German tech vocabulary that has been absorbed into German, in terms of assigning genders and plurals. The move to minimize or get rid of the eszet (ß) might have made sense in the pre-computer era, when an additional letter might have been perceived as adding to the cost of doing business in Germany. However, it's so easy to make the character with a computer that any savings from eliminating the letter probably no longer hold water. I have my Windows keyboard set at English-International and I form ß simply by holding down the ALT key and typing "s". It's easy to do on a Mac, and on my Blackberry I just type an s and roll the cursor backward over it and it changes to ß (admittedly a bit more awkward than with a keyboard).

I believe that Die Zeit and Helmut Schmidt refuse to use the new system. Fortunately, everyone seems to understand the old way, even if it's no longer officially taught, so it's not as if people won't understand you if you write the old way.
 
Actually,

most of us have decided on a mixture of old and new. The kids who grew up with the new system follow it, tho' the ß is making a big comeback with the younger generation for some reason. Fine with me, I like having a special symbol.

Die Zeit objected for the best possible reason. Nobody asked their opinion and they consider themselves to be "the" predominate fountain of German thought, reason, poetry and philosphy.

Just ask them.

Did the Rechtschreibreform actually make things easier? My feeling is that it really cleaned up punctuation, reduced "Schachtelsätze" and simplified spelling in word families.

It did, however, introduce some absurd, stupid, laughable and totally illogical adjectival and adverbial forms which, rightly, have been rejected and will no doubt be cast out at the next conclave.

My university demands our students write exclusively in the new form of High German, American English or Latin.

Period.

I still use the old form to write emails to an especially anal-retentive nasty young-dynamic-manager in the administration who then sends back a note demanding I conform to the regulations. Since we have to correspond 30-40 times a semester, it gives me great satisfaction to post his replies on the bulletin board in the Germanistic department. They then mark up his errors and send them on to other departments.

Es lebe der "ß"!
 
In a pub in Ireland *English spoken, American understood*

Greek has three forms.

1- Purist
2- Proper "journalistic" language
3- Everday "spoken"

There are three "E"s, two "O" and seven dithongs. The grammar and usage changes with the government.

I'm not sure one would say it is a living, evolving language as is English. It is chock-full of foreign words to the point that the "real" word is no longer known or may not ever have existed.

In English you can talk technology but nto so much emotions or feelings; in Greek, LAWD have mussy, you can describe someone's character to a "T". Describing your web-browser and printer, not so much.

So yay to the quirks of language.
 
and don't think changes to language...

...are just for the non-english language countrys.

Since our change of government at the last election in late 2007, there have been numerous 'spelling corrections' within the Australian Government - some of which are just pathetic...

As an example, we are no longer allowed to spell 'Programme' but have to use 'Program' (and I am not going to get into the whys and where fors about which is correct or not as it varies from country to country...lets just accept that the first version is the correct version for this country) in any document or website that carrys the Australian Government coat of arms or in any correspondence....

...and there are others too
 
Oz spelling revisions??

Hi Chris,

Say what? When did that happen? What other "corrections" are afoot? No offense to our American friends, but is this all the result of us raising our children on "Sesame Street" instead of adequately funding our own ABC (the national government-funded broadcaster) to produce high-quality children's programmes so that our own dialect of English is taught and preserved? It almost seems that way.

Also, to the German speakers, I learnt German at high-school and university in the early 70's. I've therefore only ever known the "old" way and found it the most logical system around. Yet when I said that to German people, they thought I was nuts. Interestingly, they could spell perfectly in English. It always made me wonder whether our ability to spell our native tongue is a function of our early schooling, rather than any inherent problem of the language itself. Japan and China seem to have a very high level of literacy and they have far more complex written forms than we have to contend with.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Nick
 
Nick--

English is a funny, shaggy beast of a language. Instead of being a truly Latinate language, like Italian, French, Spanish....it's part Latinate and part Germanic. I don't really speak any German beyond "Schitten sie milch, bitte," and "Bomsen" (apologies if misspelled,)however, I am slowly learning German so I can read certain documents in the original.

As for cultural identity, it is a challenge, especially since some of the best (and worst) of the culture of the United States is exported. Levis are a good export (I think,) and most of our television is a dreadful export. My objection to Sesame Street (and I am a Sesame Street Uncle,) is that it is too fast-paced.

I firmly believe that the most useful attitude is "take what you like, and leave the rest."

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 

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