[Lexicog] Humour, OTT completely

[Fritz Goerling]

Hey, Dood,

See for my answers below.

Fritz


  Hogan's Heroes

  I doubt if the show did anything deliberately to make Col Klink sound like
  a Prussian officer,

     Maybe it was the monocle.

   because the average American probably doesn't know the
  word "Prussian" or thinks it vaguely a synonym for "German".

     Apart from specialists on Prussian history like you, Steve.

   And what I
  remember of the show, I don't think they tried to emphasize Klink as the
  stereotypical German who ordered everyone around, he was a foolish
  character who sometimes would feel like he should be sterner with the
  prisoners but it usually wouldn't last, he was so completely in awe of
  Hogan's American self-confidence and glibness.

  Although, Klink did have a monocle, which is the classic Anglophone
  trademark of a German officer. Is it so for Germans, as a classic mark of
a
  Prussian officer, I wonder?

     Not necessarily. I think it is the insistence on discipline. You
remember the equally funny series MASH.
        The superior officer and the blonde nurse are examples of that
"discipline", always undercut by the
        "crazy bunch" of the other soldiers.

   Another visual stereotype was the still photo
  showed during the credits, of an American officer's cap placed on top of a
  Prussian spiked helmet (pickelhaube, right?)

  So in the German version, do any of the actors have a Prussian accent? And
  what accents do the American characters have? Do they speak German with
bad
  American accents?

       I have to find out more about that.

       Ve hev vays of teaching zem discipline,  ;-)

       Fritz


  Steve White, Jaars language software support
  704-843-6337, 1-800-215-7813










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