Word: things
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...what are the compensating virtues? For an English speaker, there is only one, but it is quite substantial: basic vocabulary. As linguistic cousins, German and English share a large stock of cognates, words that are spelled alike and mean the same thing -- for example, person, winter and arm. Plenty of words have only slight differences: if you're nervous in English, you're nervos in German. With a little imagination, one can find any number of common roots. Take, for example, the verb to smell: riechen, from the same root as the English reeks. The malodorousness does not exist...
However new initiates fare -- and enrollment in German courses around the world is rapidly increasing -- one thing is certain: Germany's regained prominence will give a fillip to wider usage of the language, and is bound as well to contribute more words to other tongues. Already television viewers in the U.S. have seen signs of a heightened linguistic confidence on the part of the Germans. One example: a Volkswagen ad campaign that centers on the word Fahrvergnugen, or joy in driving -- however mispronounced it may be in the commercials. Only a few years ago, the use of a German word...
Afterward, when their daughter was buried and their hearts broken, the Bells could see everything clearly. Until then, they had not thought about their teenager's getting pregnant or what they would do if she did. They did not know that there was any such thing as a parental-consent...
...both aggressive and docile, robot-like people who love order and discipline, work and war. Like the stereotypes of the snobbish English or the immoral French or the crass Americans, such caricatures are generally created by one's enemies, often in times of war. "There is such a thing as national character, but it changes," says William Manchester, a Wesleyan University adjunct professor of history and author of The Arms of Krupp. "And the German national character has changed. The Germans are united by language, by culture. And young Germany -- which is most of Germany today -- is also united...
Hunsberger said he would make a small profit if all 500 printed copies sell out at the $5 price tag, but he stressed that his primary goal was to have people "realize that the street scene in Harvard Square was a good thing...