[lit-ideas] Re: Drei Kleine Nachtmusiken

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 14:48:41 -0600

JL:

"I'm a little drunk". The 'a' applies to 'little', not to drunk. It does
_not_ mean: "I'm a small drunkard". It's otiose having to show these basic
things to anglo-native speakers.


And yet, that is your lot in life.  Get over it.
It has struck me that the more common / important something is within a culture, the more words there are to communicate it. Thus the plethora of words to name sexual organs and acts and dispositions, etc. So, too, with bodily elimination and its products, there's a shitload of terminology in this regard -- who would have guessed such scatological fascination? In the same vein are the words, words, words used to describe drinking and intoxication. So I guess the 3 most important aspects of human culture are shitting and fucking and drinking.
No judgment being passed here. I bring it up because I think JL should write a book about that. 

Mike Geary
regular, chaste and sober
in Memphis
----- Original Message ----- From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> 
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 10:47 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Drei Kleine Nachtmusiken



In a message dated 3/5/2009 11:31:11 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Say it ain't so, Joe.

Mike  Geary
stunned that JL could have been wrong.
now looking for a new  hero.


----

Well, there are five caveats:
--- I'm not sure he is right about High German. I find the phrase confusing. Does it have to do with the field geology? I never knew. vs. Low German. Or 
is it mere north vs. south. But then, if it's field geology, I find  it
derogatory, and why wouldn't the high Germans then be the hillbillies?
It seems obvious that 'klein' means 'clean' in all types of German _except_ the one C. Bruce is now familiar with, the "High" one, yet he patronisingly 
says, "In German, 'klein' means 'little'".

---- He does say that one can use 'musiken', but this bit I found is
jocular. It's written by someone born in 1953 (and I left in blanks to complete with 
his dates of death). So it's merely a 'charade' as we say on the Mozart
thing.

----- etc.
---- If this is a set of three pieces, one is in doubt as to what's 'clean' 
about it. Each one is clean? Or the whole set taken collectively? If the
latter, I cannot use 'clean' for that, for it's very long (ditto for Mozart's 
thing).
--- It's also pretty silly to force a player to perform this _at night_. So 
the whole thing must be jocular even in the vernacular.

   Consider:

       A:  I'll play a little  night music.

B: I'm a little drunk

What do you mean, a little, you are totally intoxicated.

"I'm a little drunk". The 'a' applies to 'little', not to drunk. It does
_not_ mean: "I'm a small drunkard". It's otiose having to show these basic
things to anglo-native speakers.
As for the 'eine', I did mention that it's not the same as "a". "One little 
music" is the strict translation of Mozart's thing.

Cf. the oddity of saying "I'm one little drunk". "Half one!"

You are not one bit drunk.
   * Yes, I am one bit drunk
   *  No, I'm two bits drunk.

C. Bruce should play around with other possibilities instead of being
patronising about things.

Cheers,

JL

Cheers,

JL
**************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy 
steps!
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1219957551x1201325337/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID
%3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62)
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html 

------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 03-2009