Living German I: American pomposity vs German wittiness

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Because I worked for an educational publisher, I still have a thing for language books. Especially when they are serving stereotypes under the guise of German grammar. Which is perfect because German grammar is one of the nasty ones. The syntax is so complicated that you focus on every single ending of a word instead of the content.

So you don’t realise that you are being brainwashed.

In the fabulous book Living German by R.W. Buckley, M.A., who is (or was) a „Lecturer in German, Technical College, Coventry“, first published in 1957, you can see the patriarchy in German families, written by a Brit and feel the resentments of Brits towards Americans after World War Two in Western post-war Germany. I have the third edition from 1981 on my table. It is remarkable how old-fashioned the dialogues are and it makes me wonder how much they changed during the editions or how little. I guess the latter is the case.

Living German: a guide through cultures

The first dialogue I want to show you is about an American in Cologne who gets guided through the city by a local. Chapter 16, “Karl erzählt eine Anekdote (Comparison of Adjectives)” I translated into English:

(…) An American visits Cologne. This man is a very nice guy (You have to make that extra clear when you describe an American). But he has one bad habit: he shows off too much (well…no comment needed on that). His friend from Cologne shows him the oldest buildings in the beautiful city on the river Rhine. The stranger finds everything smaller than in his country (!). The German shows him the Kölner Dom.

-       “What’s the name of this church?”, asks the American. (beginning of teasing)

-       “That’s the cathedral of Cologne”, answers the German. (poor guy, ignoring the rudeness of the American, might be a slip-up?)

-       “The church of Mary in Boston is much bigger and higher than this dome. Also, reinforced concrete is better than stone. (no, no slip-up, it’s simply rudeness) Do you know our skyscraper, the Woolworth building? (yes, it’s an old book) It’s the biggest building in the world.” (told you)

The German gets tired: he is fed up and searches for a practical answer. (oh these task-orientated Germans) They arrive at the Rhine. There’s the Rhine-bridge, the longest of all bridges. (I think this anecdote is full of phallic metaphors)

-       “What’s the name of that bridge there?” asks the American

-       “What bridge?” asks the German. “I can’t see a bridge.” The foreigner points at the bridge. “Ach so” (I didn’t want to translate this part, because it’s… a very good reflection of Germans being surprised) answers the person from Cologne. “That’s new. I was here yesterday and there wasn’t a bridge before.” (how can you respond to that!?)

The American isn’t so stupid at all. (why this sentence, did it occur to the reader that the American might be stupid?) He laughs and says: “I understand. I have everything better than you, (at least that’s what your insisting on) and you’re making a mockery of me (in original it’s und Sie halten mich zum besten which means to mock s.o, but it is also a word game because it is playing with “best”)

That is how Karl’s anecdote ends, and all the family laughs of that word game. (…)

So, while you were learning about the comparison of adjectives, you also learned that Americans are competitive arseholes and Germans are witty and task-orientated. This doesn’t come from me, it comes from the British person R.W. Buckley. What does that say about the relationship between Brits and Americans? I think Buckley has some resentments towards Americans and really does like Germans. Who else would say that Germans have a great sense of humour?