Author Archives: schaefew

Male and female

Female fruit flies are larger than male (p. 69), and so are the females of the cochineal, but these have no wings, whereas the males do (p. 66); both male and female goats have beards (p. 52); male drones die … Continue reading

Posted in Natur | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Miraculous

In Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years (1997) Misha tells the story of a little Jewish girl’s miraculous survival in Nazi Germany. Her adventures include being trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, stabbing a Nazi rapist, trekking across Europe on foot … Continue reading

Posted in Gesellschaft, Literatur | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Life? How boring!

In George Gissing’s New Grub Street, a character named Harold Biffen writes a novel which describes the life of an ordinary grocer in absolutely realistic detail and with zero dramatic shaping. The novel is unutterably boring by design. It is about … Continue reading

Posted in Literatur | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazing memory

The day after the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, researchers asked people how they had heard about the disaster, how they felt and what they had been doing. The same people were asked the same questions two and a half … Continue reading

Posted in Leben | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

International bird

The eagle features on all US documents. It was chosen by Congress as the national bird in 1782. This is a reference to Ancient Rome, with whose virtues the founding fathers sought to associate. The eagle in Rome was, however, … Continue reading

Posted in Gesellschaft | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Senior modesty

Of one million high school seniors surveyed in the US, 70% thought they were above average in leadership ability. In terms of ability to get along with others, nearly all students thought they were above average, 60% thought they were … Continue reading

Posted in Gesellschaft, Leben | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Master and Master

A Russian friend gave me a copy of The Master and Margarita for a present, Bulgakov’s well-known novel. Whereas the English editions all seem to include the article in the title, there is variation in the German editions: Der Meister … Continue reading

Posted in Sprache, Sprachvergleich, Übersetzung | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Poor dodo

The ancestors of the dodo flew to Mauritius. There, they had no natural enemies, got larger and larger and lost the ability to fly, in an inverse evolutionary process, so to speak. When the Europeans came to Mauritius, they brought … Continue reading

Posted in Gesellschaft, Natur | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Poor rat

The rat is often blamed for causing the Black Death. In reality, it was only one the carriers of the flea, which was the primary vector for bubonic plague. Poor rat! Actually, something rather similar goes for the mosquito, Anopheles … Continue reading

Posted in Natur | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seafarers

Both the seal and the whale are animals which left the water to live on land and then left the land and returned to the water. (Chaline, Eric: Fifty Animals that Changed the Course of History. Buffalo, New York: Firefly Books, … Continue reading

Posted in Natur | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Americans

The camel originally comes from America, and so does the wolf. (Chaline, Eric: Fifty Animals that Changed the Course of History. Buffalo, New York: Firefly Books, 2011: 40-45)

Posted in Natur | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Unfreiheit

Aus einem Radiovortrag, in dem es um Freiheit und Unfreiheit geht, nehme ich diese Gedanken mit: Wir können die Welt nie so wahrnehmen, wie sich wirklich ist. Unsere Wahrnehmung ist immer eine menschliche. Die Welt so zu sehen wie eine … Continue reading

Posted in Leben, Psychologie, Sprachphilosophie | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Chruschtschows Schuhattacke

Schon seit meiner Kindheit kenne ich die Anekdote von Chruschtschow, der bei der UNO mit dem Schuh auf das Pult schlägt. Jetzt habe ich in einer Radiosendung gehört, dass das vermutlich eine Legende ist. Jedenfalls gibt es kein Photo, das … Continue reading

Posted in Gesellschaft | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brussels Speak?

“An agent has precised the modalities of actual English usage that can be used within the reasonability by European actors and those engaged in planification.” At first sight, this sentence, taken from a EU document, sounds like proper English. At … Continue reading

Posted in Fremdsprache, Sprache, Sprachgebrauch | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

You say yea, I say nay

In older forms of English, a distinction was made between yea /jei/ and nay /nei/ and yes and no, the former two being used when the preceding statement contained no negative, the latter two being used when the preceding statement … Continue reading

Posted in Sprache, Sprachvergleich, Sprachwandel | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment