The Commander is back.Logos.
A funny thing happened to me recently.
I read an article on the net about an ATM. The line broke in an unfortunate place. At first I thought of tomatoes. Only then did I think of a bank. Well, sometimes the brain wiring takes a little longer to reach 100% attention. So it was supposed to be about an ATM.
Letter salad is nothing special any more. We are inundated with it every day. Do you know these texts? Would you like to try one? Here’s one that’s been buzzing around the web for years:
“According to our sutide eneir elgnihcesn Uvinisterät, it is not important in which rneflogheie the bstachuebn in a wrot snid, the only thing that is wcthiig is that the estre and the letzte bstabchue at the ritihcegn pstoiion snid. The Rset can be a ttoaelr Bsinöldn, tedztorm can be read onhe Pemoblre. That’s because we don’t read every single piece of paper individually, but the word as a whole.” *
Well? It worked out well, didn’t it? It really is like that. You don’t even notice a lot of the confusion, you swallow other things helplessly and sometimes it’s unfortunately so bad that you have difficulty understanding a simple and concise text, for example in a daily newspaper.
Do you know that?
So I read on with interest yesterday:
“Yesterday I stood at the ATM for a long time …”, one writer wrote. The article went on to say that it should read “at the ATM”. That is correct. It went on to say that the writer had messed it up. What then?
At first I was confused. Of course you’re standing at an AutomatEN. What is correct must remain correct: grammar. But there was something about this sentence that puzzled me, because I just didn’t understand it.
Finally, my language lamp – the one with the big question mark – went on. Here in southern Germany, it’s strange to form the perfect tense of “stehen” with “haben”. The dictionary has finally enlightened me – there really is a regional difference between “haben” and “sein” and so I’m sticking to my guns: I, for one, BIN stood at the ATM yesterday.
Because anyone who HAS stood at an ATM here in the south has admitted to having done something – they have effectively made a confession to the ATM.
That settled it for me for the time being and a great joy, coupled with the realization of the wise, came over me. Whether “to be” or “to have”: German is a wonderful language!
But there’s more. Do you understand everything you read? I know translators who understand everything they read. The special thing is that they understand both. They understand what they read and also what they make of it and write down in a language that is foreign to us. In all shades, with all the subtleties and peculiarities. This is why these fascinating people, far removed from the idea of translation automation, can remain comprehensible as far as possible without machines and always with their finger on the pulse. The highlight is that the people who speak this foreign language in their country also understand what my translator has written. Isn’t that great?
Well, tonight at home I’ll be moving in a different world again. I am from Württemberg. I live in the beautiful Rems Valley, I was born and grew up there and I make a point of speaking Swabian at home.
That’s why I’m going to ask my son on my left to help me again tonight at the dinner table – with the following words:
“Where’s the butter? Pass me the plate, I need the butter.”
Now a Babylonian confusing point has been reached in the language – quite in the original sense of these thoughts, whether it is about “to be” or “to have” – not to question the existence, but to question the origin of Giovanni Trapattoni:
I have finished.
Do you also suffer from quasi-Babylonian linguistic confusion?
I hope not, otherwise ask us, we’ll do it.
We understand you. No matter in which language. We promise.
COMLOGOS.
_____
- I would like to thank Dr. Gabriele Frings for the idea for this text. This is the lady who likes to explain why she means “the eraser” in the north, when here in the south it’s “the eraser” we’re talking about.
- I would like to thank Mr. Dietmar Simon for the idea of the letter salad.
- Our teaser painting of the Tower of Babel is by Pieter Brueghel from 1563.
- * Source Letter salad: Letter salad
