Verzeihung, bitte!

[Wilson Gray]

'Taint a problem at all, Fritz. It's just that I got a chuckle out of seeing
"cool" used as an ordinary German adjective to the point of being given the
relevant ("relevant" itself appeared farther along in the piece, by
coincidence) grammatical ending. Not being able to help myself referred to
the fact that I was going to quote something from a language other than a
variety of English, even though the quotation included two English words. It
was like seeing the signs in nightclub windows reading, "Hier spielt
Rock-Ola Musicbox" or seeing "Strip-Tease-Girls" in neon back in the late
'50's. back in that day, I also heard things like "cool," "Kleine
Teen-Ager," and "Ich bin kein Hot-Rodder." (The cabbie overheard my buddy
say, "Damn! This guy's a real hot-rodder!" from the backseat.)

-Wilson

On 5/3/06, FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at salkeiz.k12.or.us> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
> Subject:      Re: Verzeihung, bitte!
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson,
> why can't you help yourself?  Is the problem the use of -cool- or -cool-
> with an adj. ending?
> Neither of these should bother you.  Cool has been used in German for a
> long time.
> Fritz
>
> >>> hwgray at GMAIL.COM 5/3/2006 6:13 AM >>>
> I couldn't help myself when I saw this on a German site:
>
> "_Coole_ Nachwuchs-Bands" ("Cool up-and-coming bands")
>
> -Wilson
>
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