(no subject)

[geekchick]

Found on metaquotes, I've been laughing about the responses to this post all night.

Some choice quotes from various responses:

Wow! I am surprised (überraschen) and overjoyed (überglücklich) to discover that the prefix über- can only be used with nouns!

And also that it can only be taken literally. German history makes so much more sense when you realize that the slogan "Deutschland über Alles" means that German is physically situated above everything else. I suppose when you believe your entire country is floating somewhere above Europe, it's bound to lead to some oddities of foreign policy.

Among the reasons it can be difficult to be a grammar-whore, grammar-nazi, grammar-temple-concubine or what have you, is the fact that English does not merely borrow words from other languages. English chases other languages into dark alleys, clubs them over the head and turns out their pockets looking for loose vocabulary.

This process is, to put it gently, not pretty.

Comments

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Given that he is wrong (in the strictness of that modifier's use, and meaning) he has gotten a fairly gentle treatment from the locals.

But that first post, it's a duesey.

TK

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You had to post that, didn't you.

I've now commented 2x on it.

Damn you to über-hell!

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

That's OK. *I* had to spend 20 minutes looking up the quote about dark alleyways:

In actuality it was Booker T. Washington:

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.


(The things we'll spend 20 minutes looking for when we're avoiding housework!)

[wdomburg.livejournal.com]

Apparently that's not entirely accurate either, at least according to this page (http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/13/13-499.html).

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Nicoll quote was where we started in the other thread. He certainly said it in 1990. However, when searching, I found quite a lot of links to the Booker T. Washington version, most on what I'd consider to be relatively reputable sites. A search of snopes.com and several other urban legend sites brought no information whatsoever.

The history of the quote appears to be Washington, then Spider Robinson, then Nicoll, each with a slightly different version.

[wdomburg.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty well convinced that it originated with Nicoll after a bit more digging. Consider:

• None of the sites attributing the quote to Washington list can identify where or when he said it; at best they cite other quote databases or "none". The only exception I saw was one listing their source as "Discovering Grammar" by Anne Lobeck. I'd almost guarantee that book also fails to cite an original source.
  
• There are only 92 results from the google link you gave. There are 1250 if you repeat the search with "James D. Nicoll" instead.
  
• Plugging the same snippet of the quote into groups.google.com failed to return any results prior to May 15, 1990 - the post that James made.
  
• Particularly in light of the lack of evidence of the Washington attribution, I have no reason to call James a liar when he claims the quote as original
  

Yours is the first mention I've heard of Spider Robinson, and using the snippet you gave it doesn't bring up anything but quote collections including the Nicoll quote as well as an unrelated Robinson quote.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Yours is the first mention I've heard of Spider Robinson, and using the snippet you gave it doesn't bring up anything but quote collections including the Nicoll quote as well as an unrelated Robinson quote.

Go back to the original thread. Someone else there thinks that Spider Robinson said it in the 1960's. It's a slightly different quote, of course.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Which raises the question, would you rather be in Uber-hell, or unter?

TK

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

Nothing like the sight of someone being stupidly anal-retentive (remembered the hyphen!) to start one's day.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

That quote is, like, ubercool!

:P