h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ah, my little chickadee, what you have there is, I mean, you wear that aire of mistery, that... err of misery..., um, that joie de mise en scene..., that certain undefinable something, that if I could, I'd put it in a jar and sell it for fifty cents... yess, yess...

Now, where's my waiter... I was expecting some 12 year-old scotch...
vigourous little vintage, bit you on the tongue, if you don't watch out!

summons a bottle of whisky, 12-years-old, and some glasses. I have mine neat. Pours in a glass. And you?

Just start an IV.

Cheers!

Just wonder, how long does it take you to write down a post in a foreign language. It appears that is my problem.

Writing up this post does take me as much time as if I wrote it in German. When finished, I only skim the text but not reading it. Most times I find my mistakes after I send out the message.

A friend of mine, who has studied Enlish at University writes excellently, but she takes a lot of time. Where I blurt it out, she will careflully check for errors, the dictionary at hand. Maybe I should slow down a bit.

Cheers!

I don't know. I've never tried to type in a furrin language.
Where I live, I am lucky to find anyone who can read, so what I do write is difficult for them to translate.

I did once play a game with an acquaintance at work. She was from some where in Bavaria and I was translating my poetry into Deutsche using a U.S. published dictionary and she would translate it back to see what we got.

Got a question.
Many of the Yerman sites that I visit have this odd habit of using a lot of capital letters in the middle of sentences, even in the middle of compound words.
Is this a normal habit when people write or type?

We silly Germans start every Noun with a capital Letter. Bit strange, I don't know any other Language that does this. Could be my Lack of Knowledge, though...

I think we are pretty unique in this aggrevating habit. My hopes were high with the "Reform" but it only made matters worse.

who ever thought of this stupid reform? the only thing I can manage is to write "daß" "dass", I can't handle the other things like writing words together/apart/capital/small...
and I have a little weakness with double r, s, b, d, etc. in any language. I never learned to write adress corectly (address, addres?)

English: Address
German: Adresse

I agree! Imagine all the aweful words with TRIPLE letters... Schifffahrt, Kaffeeecke.

Nuts, totally nuts.

They've abolished the 3 letter monsters now i think, and feelin'
fearfully pleased with themselves how democratic they are, the dictionary dorks i mean. All the unspeakable spelling reform achieved was turning the 20 % literate Germans (optimistic estimate) into illiterates like the rest.

hmmm...I should say about 5% literate, coming to youths: 2%

Que? Reform?

Yeah, the (in)famous reform of German spelling.

Announced to make life easier, but only made it worse.

Yeah, instead of 80 - 95 % illiteracy we have now achieved a 100 % illiteracy in Germany, and not only that, we also have succeeded in giving the words "elite" and "innovation" entirely new meanings... well what can i do but laugh, not wearing waterproof mascara.

Wondering... was there ever such a thing in Britain or US? In France, in Italy?

Is it just us, the overorganized Germans?

I can't think of any other people coming up with s**te like this.
Nor of any other people remotely likely to put up with s**te like this.

*thinking of something to contribute*
*mind filled with dreams about summer holidays*
I agree.

as if this wasn't depressing enough you have to come and drag the weather into it