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The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called "separable verbs." The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is reiste ab -- which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED."However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.
I think I found a copy of it :lmao:http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html#x1
Oh yeah. Great stuff. Twain just kills me. I actually post as Twark Main on a few other sites. Also, when I'm looking for quotes for my sig like my top three are almost always Twain, Rand and Reagan.
Twain is excellent but I never remember to look him up when I'm at the library. Now, I order something online and when it arrives, I check it out and leave. I've found a few good books from wandering the aisle in a particular section of the library, but I haven't had time to do that in a while.
His biography by Ron Powers was really good too. There is a section in there in which Twain, awaiting a review of one of his first books and from a particulary noteworthy critic, describes his relief by saying (something like) "I feel like the chamber maid who was thrilled that the baby came out white". This was (I forget) maybe 15 or 20 years after the Civil War.
Just got home from work... had a much better day today, especially since it was PAY DAY! Although, I did notice that too little was withheld on my federal income tax, so I need to look into that. I would rather not have to pay up next year for that.
