The redhead likes Mark Twain...

     I haven't actually ever read a book by Mark Twain, but I have read his critisim of the German Language and on one point he and I can agree whole heartedly: German is a very complicated language for an english-speaking person to learn. Like gender articles. I had and Mark Twain definitely had a problem with gender articles at first. I mean, why? Why does one need to categorize everything into it's own gender and section of the table? (Or maybe that's just my liberal mind seeing the German language as a metaphor for society....)
     But nevertheless, it can be annoying... what was even funnier (as Mark Twain also expressed in his critical peice "The Awful German Language" ) was that words like "Rock" (in english "skirt"), and "Uterus" (in english "uterus" (duh)) were masculine while the word for girl, "Mädchen", is neuter.....
     Or how about the fact that the word "sie" can stand for six different englisch words (as Mark Twain also pointed out). "Sie" can refer to "she", "her", "you" (polite form), "it", "they", or "them" in a sentence. Mark Twain went angrily on to say:

"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."

     Now, on this subject I tend to agree with sometimes being confused as to which meaning is a sentence is being used, but instead of seeing it as "language poverty" as he put it, I see it as a lovely guessing game, albeit, sometimes an annoying guessing game,  but either way, it is in no way an indication of poverty.
     But I noticed that Twain never turned the tables on his own english-speaking mind to that of a german-speaking one. For example, imagine an exchange student coming to America (or England, NZ, Aussie, whereever) and the student is suddenly being forced to learn (for the umpteenth time, I might add) about the reproductive system of the human. Then, this poor confused exchange student will be forced to learn that the canal between the uterus and the ovaries is not something logical, like say "Egg Canals" or "Egg Tubes" or something, but instead the simple "Fallopian Tubes". Why English? Why?
         (If you really want to know why you can click here to learn about a guy from Italy who supposedly "discovered them (because you know, it's not like they were there before....))
       In German the word for these magnificent Canals is "Eileiter" or "Egg Leader" (sort of), which apart from being logical always makes me think it means "Egg ladder" because the word "Leiter" can also mean "ladder", but enough gabble-di-goo. I only know these things because of my Biology class today, in which I learned about Codoms, the Period, and other controceptives to stop pregnancy, because in Germany they don't just tell you to abstainf rom sex. I must say the best part of the video was probably when the cheerful, couragous Boy with the 80's style haircut bought his comdoms at the local store and then threw they up and caught them again celebratorially with a cheesy smile. It was rather hilarious and made stay for afternoon school not so terrible as it normally is.
     Other than my day, I would strongly suggest reading "The Awful German Language" by Twain (which is linked above in the second paragraph) , though the title bothers me (because german is fantastic), it is quite funny to read and very well written in general.
     Have a pleasant day.