|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Mark Twain learned to speak German quite well, enough to make fun over some long German words that would not be candidates for LoanWords:
Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen.
Alterthumswissenschaften.
Kinderbewahrungsanstalten.
Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen.
Wiedererstellungbestrebungen.
Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
In reading Stephen Ambrose's "D-Day" I find this:
...the German command structure was a disaster. Hitler's mistrust of the generals and the generals' mistrust of Hitler were worth a king's ransom to the Allies. So were Hitler's sleeping habits, as well as his Wolkenkuckucksheim ideas.
I assume the big word may be glossed approximately as Cloud-cuckoo-land?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Good assumption, tsuwm.
Wolke - cloud
Kuckuck - cuckoo (the s makes it genitive)
Heim - home
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
A king's ransom in those days would have been peanuts. A better figure of speech might have been "worth twenty divisions".
I also think that Hitler's intelligence has been erroneously underestimated. It is hard to judge his mental aberrations. I asked a top Boston psychiatrist in 1939 if Hitler was insane, and he replied "Absolutely not!" I recently read that Hitler's own physician felt differently.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
...and your Boston guy might well have changed his opinion by '44 or '45.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
|
old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
I just decided to venture below the equator to LfG, and I'll resurrect this in order to publicly bring up the book I'm currently fascinated by - Dr Bill, did your top Boston psychiatrist happen to work at McLean? I'm in the middle of Gracefully Insane, the author of which escapes me currently, but it's an amazing history of the psychiatric hospital in the Boston suburbs. Just fishin' to see what comes out of bringing it up...
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Gracefully Insane, the author of which escapes...Get him back quick! But tell us more - what is it that's particularly got you interested in this tale?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
|
old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
Gracefully Insane, the author of which escapes...
Get him back quick!
Didn't Ken Kesey identify most strongly with the Indian? But I digress...
It's a social history of Boston as much as anything. Apparently every prominent family in New England (that is anybody who was *anybody*) had someone take a "vacation" there. Sylvia Plath, James Taylor plus his brother and sister, Ray Charles, and John Forbes Nash (A Beautiful Mind) all did a stint there, along with many others (long gone) whose names I don't remember off the top of my head (likely because they're long gone). Just read last night about the rise of talk therapy and Freud's stint in treating some McLean patients... a great survey of the evolution of psychiatric practices, plus regional social history.
And to think I was drawn to the cover in the bookstore because I saw the picture of the building on the cover and initially misread the first word of the title as "Graceland". I bought it anyway after I read the inside flap!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
|
old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,629
Members9,187
|
Most Online3,341 Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
1 members (A C Bowden),
546
guests, and
4
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|