dialect continua or oh rosamunde, we’ll have a barrel of fun

Though still rather persistently disheartening, the myths of formative language years (that the brains of juveniles are plastic enough to easily pick up a new language but adults become too set and rigid) or that bi-lingual exposure results in a poorer language arts skills in both tongues have been debunked.

I’d be happy to attribute my dithering German abilities to shyness and laziness rather than some physical and developmental limitations, and I am finding that when trying to delve deeper than the gist of a article or a conversation, being able to more than follow but to repeat, report and better participate, I get very muddled with the prefixes—those inseparable parts of words (er-, ver-, ent-, ab- and so on) that are more transformative, nuanced than their English counterparts. When I come across a new word (usually in writing and usually something that that I’d just elide over when heard) I try some techniques, memory-hacks, to make the meaning stickier. Ent- as a part of speech can be especially tricky to puzzle out sometimes, for example, but usually connotes to me a casting out or taking off or a loss. The similarly-sounding Ente is a canard, a more concrete concept, and encountering an unfamiliar word, I try to imagine a deprived duck doing whatever root-word Ent- is modifying. It can be jarring to hear and drive some people crazy when things are too mixed, but I also am finding that intentional Code-Switching (Kodewechsel) is also helpful—specifically when all hope seems lost trying to remember a word encountered constantly that still needs to be looked up. It’s rather heavy-handed and nonsensical, but one can plop down a stubborn word into a familiar jingle or marketing phrase and then never forget it again: like “Alive with Vergnügen” or “Sippe of the Cave Bear” or “the committee for Truth and Versöhnung.” Eventually, I think it does stay without the need of employing such silly tricks.

bootstrap or birthright

For a land built for the most part on immigration, it seems sometimes like an arcane technicality that only natural born United States citizens can hold the office of presidency. I found the Birther hysteria undignified and distracting, although I didn't much appreciate California's bid a few years ago to amend the US Constitution so that a cyborg could become president. Turning the tables a bit, Reuters' examined the birth certificate of another contender in the election, illustrating that though a generation removed, the issue invited controversy and interpretation in the other camp as well. The candidate's father was born in Mexico, and once upon a time, sought the nomination of his political party to vie against Richard Nixon as a more moderate choice. The campaign was short-lived but demanded a definition of what a natural citizen is exactly, his parents both Americans. At the time, most judges and experts agreed with his reading. It does not seem, however, that being born outside of US territory was quite accidental, since religious colonies of dissidents were founded there to protest another very special type of non-traditional marriage that the US federal government was against and the family only, it seems, returned to America because of the Mexican Revolution.

halcyon or build your vocabulary

I suppose proper, soothing words for the most part cannot be easily copy-written, which has lead to an overflowing of creativity and confusing ingenuity with naming commercial pharmaceuticals. The talented and entertaining Whovian and blogger Bob Canada has an amusing list of drug names that could pass as SAT-grade vocabulary words. My favourite is:
Cataflam
interjection.
Something the early Jerry Lewis used to bleat out in his movies. "Oy, Mr. Lady, please stop with the hitting and the hurting and the cataflam!"
 It's funny because I don't know what any of these medicines are. What alternative definitions would you come up with for the products in your life?

pyrrhic victory or yes, we have no bleeding turnips

“Another such victory and I am undone.”

The ethos of the battlefield has, for the most part, been relegated to the invisible and agnostic sphere of finance, which has created an aversion to bloodshed and protracted war-making, since that is not a good climate for business—most business, likely there’s a calculus for acceptable loss and trigger for cutting-off the profits for the infernal machines, but it also tends to overshadow the “retrograde” and black market skirmishes that still go on and the people who take part in these sorties and surprises. The majority of what passes as an economic victory (although industry innovation and what’s now called a come-back or revival, like with Ireland or Iceland and what will happen for the Greek people, is not being entertained with this category of robber-baron success) is little cause for celebration (DE/EN), priced in terms of bankruptcy for the competition, the bleeding dry of stake-holders (shareholders and debtors), loss of jobs and living-standards, and trend-setting easily overturned that’s mere redistribution among the oligarchs. What are deemed key institutions are even sustained after being vanquished at the expense of public treasure. Those who would like to see struggling members of the European currency union quickly dispatched and dismissed unwillingly, rather than risk a sort of economic cold war, are rushing away from triumph. The EU’s proponents and founders could not have anticipated the spread of the economic collapse and that such a crisis would force a sober discussion of policy (how taxation and budgets are drafted) integration and is not using the plight of some members to justify the hegemony of others—rather this experiment in amalgamation, an imperfect union, shows how diminished the whole would be without its constituent parts and that the abridgement of differences is no basis for abandonment or ejection. Though the belligerents of politics and finance are intertwined, there’s principle enough, I hope, within the governments (at the behest of the people and not business or self-interest alone) to make the right decisions and have cause to celebrate.

faux château

Some might be too quick to savour the irony of the Chinese being victims of counterfeit goods, but I did think it was an interesting reversal to hear that the outrageous popularity of red wine, for its health benefits and cuisine pairing opportunity, especially from certain growers like Château Lafite Rothschild of the Médoc region, has inspired imposters wanting in on the action. In the Chinese market, some vintages can fetch a price of several thousand euros per bottle, and knock-offs are emerging--mostly new wine in old bottles. Wine from this estate have always commanded premium prices, where ever they are sold, however. In the main, the penchant is for the French tradition but wines from elsewhere are becoming popular, too. It would be disappointing and embarrassing for a member of the cult of connoisseurs to fall for such a trick, but the subject of luxury and trendy refinement is a strange thing, especially when the substitute passes muster.