WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.920 --> 00:00:05.599
<v Speaker 1>Section two of the Awful German Language by Mark Twain.

2
00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:10.880
<v Speaker 1>This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by

3
00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.960
<v Speaker 1>Kirsten Webber. Section two. There are ten parts of speech,

4
00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:21.879
<v Speaker 1>and they are all troublesome. An average sentence in a

5
00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:27.879
<v Speaker 1>German newspaper is a sublime and impressive curiosity. It occupies

6
00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.519
<v Speaker 1>a quarter of a column. It contains all the ten

7
00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:36.439
<v Speaker 1>parts of speech, not in regular order, but mixed. It

8
00:00:36.479 --> 00:00:40.479
<v Speaker 1>is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer

9
00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:44.439
<v Speaker 1>on the spot and not to be found in any dictionary,

10
00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.560
<v Speaker 1>six or seven words compacted into one without joint or seam,

11
00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:54.920
<v Speaker 1>that is, without hyphens. It treats of fourteen or fifteen

12
00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:59.000
<v Speaker 1>different subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own,

13
00:00:59.560 --> 00:01:05.760
<v Speaker 1>with here and there extra parentheses, making pens within pens. Finally,

14
00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:10.959
<v Speaker 1>all the parentheses and re parentheses are masked together between

15
00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:14.959
<v Speaker 1>a couple of king parentheses, one of which is placed

16
00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:18.640
<v Speaker 1>in the first line of the majestic sentence and the

17
00:01:18.719 --> 00:01:21.680
<v Speaker 1>other in the middle of the last line of it,

18
00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:26.200
<v Speaker 1>after which comes the verb and you find out for

19
00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:29.959
<v Speaker 1>the first time what the man has been talking about.

20
00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:34.120
<v Speaker 1>And after the verb, merely by way of ornament as

21
00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:37.079
<v Speaker 1>far as I can make out, the writer shovels in

22
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.439
<v Speaker 1>hobbins into keeviz and gehaptaben goebodensign or words to that effect,

23
00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:48.400
<v Speaker 1>and the monument is finished. I suppose that this closing

24
00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:51.280
<v Speaker 1>hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a

25
00:01:51.319 --> 00:01:59.000
<v Speaker 1>man's signature. Not necessary but pretty. German books are easy

26
00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:01.640
<v Speaker 1>enough to read when you hold them before the looking

27
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:05.439
<v Speaker 1>glass or stand on your head so as to reverse

28
00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:09.159
<v Speaker 1>the construction. But I think that to learn to read

29
00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:13.039
<v Speaker 1>and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must

30
00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:18.319
<v Speaker 1>always remain an impossibility to a foreigner. Yet even the

31
00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:22.039
<v Speaker 1>German books are not entirely free from attacks of the

32
00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:26.800
<v Speaker 1>parenthesis distemper, though they are usually so mild as to

33
00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:30.560
<v Speaker 1>cover only a few lines. And therefore, when you at

34
00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:34.199
<v Speaker 1>last get down to the verb, it carries some meaning

35
00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:36.840
<v Speaker 1>to your mind, because you are able to remember a

36
00:02:36.879 --> 00:02:40.800
<v Speaker 1>good deal of what has gone before. Now Here is

37
00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:45.080
<v Speaker 1>a sentence from a popular and excellent German novel with

38
00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:49.479
<v Speaker 1>a slight parenthesis in it. I will make a perfectly

39
00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:53.479
<v Speaker 1>literal translation and throw in the parenthesis marks and some

40
00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:57.240
<v Speaker 1>hyphens for the assistance of the reader. Though in the

41
00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:01.360
<v Speaker 1>original there are no parenthesis marks or hyphens, and the

42
00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:04.639
<v Speaker 1>reader is left to flounder through to the remote verb

43
00:03:05.159 --> 00:03:12.000
<v Speaker 1>the best way he can quote. But when he upon

44
00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:17.680
<v Speaker 1>the street, the open parentheses in satin and silk covered

45
00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:23.439
<v Speaker 1>now very unconstrained. After the newest fashion dressed close parentheses

46
00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:31.080
<v Speaker 1>government councilor's wife met end quote, et cetera, et cetera.

47
00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:37.199
<v Speaker 1>Footnote one. Then eh abba af de strasser the zamptun

48
00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:44.879
<v Speaker 1>zaide geherten yets zia unginier nachtenoustenmordege claiditten regierungsreetin bigiknit end

49
00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:50.840
<v Speaker 1>of footnote one. That is from the old Mamselle's Secret

50
00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:55.319
<v Speaker 1>by missus Marlott, and that sentence is constructed upon the

51
00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:59.919
<v Speaker 1>most approved German model. You observe how far that ver

52
00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:03.520
<v Speaker 1>verb is from the reader's base of operations. Well, in

53
00:04:03.719 --> 00:04:07.199
<v Speaker 1>a German newspaper they put their verb away over on

54
00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:11.120
<v Speaker 1>the next page. And I have heard that sometimes after

55
00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:15.639
<v Speaker 1>stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column

56
00:04:15.719 --> 00:04:18.360
<v Speaker 1>or two, they get in a hurry and have to

57
00:04:18.439 --> 00:04:21.199
<v Speaker 1>go to press without getting to the verb at all.

58
00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:25.680
<v Speaker 1>Of course, then the reader is left in a very

59
00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:32.279
<v Speaker 1>exhausted and ignorant state. We have the parenthesis disease in

60
00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:35.800
<v Speaker 1>our literature too, and one may see cases of it

61
00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:40.079
<v Speaker 1>every day in our books and newspapers. But with us

62
00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.879
<v Speaker 1>it is the mark and sign of an unpracticed writer

63
00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:48.639
<v Speaker 1>for a cloudy intellect, whereas with the Germans it is

64
00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:52.759
<v Speaker 1>doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen and

65
00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:57.399
<v Speaker 1>of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog

66
00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:02.360
<v Speaker 1>which stands for clearness. A mine these people, for surely

67
00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:08.920
<v Speaker 1>it is not clearness. It necessarily can't be clearness. Even

68
00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:13.199
<v Speaker 1>a jury would have penetration enough to discover that a

69
00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:16.759
<v Speaker 1>writer's ideas must be a good deal confused, a good

70
00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:20.480
<v Speaker 1>deal out of line and sequence. When he starts out

71
00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:23.000
<v Speaker 1>to say that a man met a counselor's wife in

72
00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.600
<v Speaker 1>the street and then write in the midst of this

73
00:05:26.920 --> 00:05:31.720
<v Speaker 1>so simple undertaking halts these approaching people and makes them

74
00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:35.519
<v Speaker 1>stand still until he jots down an inventory of the

75
00:05:35.600 --> 00:05:41.560
<v Speaker 1>woman's dress that is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person

76
00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:46.040
<v Speaker 1>of those dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest

77
00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:49.000
<v Speaker 1>in a tooth by taking a grip on it with

78
00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:52.959
<v Speaker 1>the forceps and then stand there and draw through a

79
00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:59.399
<v Speaker 1>tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Parentheses in

80
00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:06.399
<v Speaker 1>literature and dentistry are in bad taste. The Germans have

81
00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:10.639
<v Speaker 1>another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a

82
00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:13.600
<v Speaker 1>verb in two and putting half of it at the

83
00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:17.920
<v Speaker 1>beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at

84
00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:22.199
<v Speaker 1>the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything

85
00:06:22.279 --> 00:06:27.600
<v Speaker 1>more confusing than that? These things are called separable verbs.

86
00:06:28.519 --> 00:06:33.000
<v Speaker 1>The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs,

87
00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:36.360
<v Speaker 1>and the wider the two portions of one of them

88
00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:40.079
<v Speaker 1>are spread apart, the better the author of the crime

89
00:06:40.279 --> 00:06:45.720
<v Speaker 1>is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is este up,

90
00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:50.680
<v Speaker 1>which means departed. Here is an example, which I called

91
00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:57.480
<v Speaker 1>from a novel and reduced to English quote. The trunks

92
00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:03.680
<v Speaker 1>being now ready, he d after kissing his mother and sisters,

93
00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:07.120
<v Speaker 1>and once more pressing to his bosom. His adored Gretchen,

94
00:07:07.319 --> 00:07:11.560
<v Speaker 1>who dressed in simple white muslin with a single tuberose

95
00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:14.639
<v Speaker 1>in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had

96
00:07:14.839 --> 00:07:18.399
<v Speaker 1>tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror

97
00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:21.439
<v Speaker 1>and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay

98
00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:24.959
<v Speaker 1>her poor aching head, yet once again, upon the breast

99
00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:30.040
<v Speaker 1>of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, parted.

100
00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:36.360
<v Speaker 1>End end of Section two.