Tangent time. Thinking about what this means for me when I teach men: I sound like a woman, I minimize differences between us, I converge as a part of building rapport. Do they use any aspects of my language as a model? I can’t really see that at all. If they did model anything on me, they would have to correct out the “female factor”, right? But I’d probably notice that, wouldn’t I, because I don’t really see how a learner would do that without sounding really weird. It’s more likely that they don’t apply any model of accommodation based on phrases at all. It’s far more essential than that, closer to Noam Chomsky’s universal grammar, “an innate set of linguistic principles shared by all humans”, so that the way anyone, including a learner of English, will accomodate another can only come out of a lifetime of practice, using multiskills honed in real interaction.

I’m buying into Merrill Swain’s concept of “comprehensible output“. This says that when a learner encounters a gap when speaking English, he or she becomes aware of it, and this leads him or her to want/try to modify it, providing the imulse to learn something new about the language. So there is clearly still a place to teach those phrases on an on-demand basis.

PS: Unfortunately the video has been made private. Here’s an alternative that shows the two interacting – if not quite as eloquently:

ICH BIN VON KOPF BIS FUSS AUF LIEBE EINGESTELLT
(Friedrich Holländer)
Marlene Dietrich

Ein rätselhafter Schimmer,
Ein “je ne sais-pas-quoi”
Liegt in den Augen immer
Bei einer schönen Frau.
Doch wenn sich meine Augen
Bei einem vis-à-vis
Ganz tief in seine saugen
Was sprechen dann sie?:

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß
Auf Liebe eingestellt,
Denn das ist meine Welt.
Und sonst gar nichts.
Das ist, was soll ich machen,
Meine Natur,
Ich kann halt lieben nur
Und sonst gar nichts.

Männer umschwirr’n mich,
Wie Motten um das Licht.
Und wenn sie verbrennen,
Ja dafür kann ich nicht.
Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß
Auf Liebe eingestellt,
Ich kann halt lieben nur
Und sonst gar nichts.

Was bebt in meinen Händen,
In ihrem heißen Druck?
Sie möchten sich verschwenden
Sie haben nie genug.
Ihr werdet mir verzeihen,
Ihr müßt’ es halt versteh’n,
Es lockt mich stets von neuem.
Ich find’ es so schön!

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß
Auf Liebe eingestellt,
Denn das ist meine Welt,
Und sonst gar nichts.
Das ist, was soll ich machen,
Meine Natur,
Ich kann halt lieben nur
Und sonst gar nichts.

Männer umschwirr’n mich,
Wie Motten um das Licht.
Und wenn sie verbrennen,
Ja dafür kann ich nichts.
Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß
Auf Liebe eingestellt,
Ich kann halt lieben nur
Und sonst gar nichts.

FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN
(Frederick Hollander / Sammy Lerner)

Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
Can’t help it

Love’s always been my game
Play it as I may
I was born that way
Can’t help it

Men flock around me
Like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn
I know I’m not to blame

Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
Can’t help it

Love’s always been my game
Play it as I may
I was born that way
Can’t help it

Men flock around me
Like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn
I know I’m not to blame

Also recorded by:
The Beatles; Diahann Carrol; Chas & Dave; Petula Clark;
Rosemary Clooney; Sammy Davis Jr.; Doris Day; Roy Eldridge;
Marianne Faithful; Brian Ferry; Crystal Gayle;
Benny Goodman; Billie Holiday; Nana Mouskouri;
André Prévin; Alan Price; Linda Ronstadt; Nina Simone;
Jo Stafford; The Three Degrees; Don Williams; … and others.

Not in my parents’ generation, and not among some of my brothers’ families, but I do think “what the f*ck” and other similar phrases using “the fuck” as an intensifier are very prevalent indeed even in everyday family talk. I had an interesting conversation with a housemate here in Potsdam last week who said our next-door neighbors, who are from the States and have a great big yard, so we get an earful of their life through the garden fence, yell at each other a lot and use expletives. My response was, well, I frankly hadn’t noticed, but yes, that just might happen among American couples, sure. It’s sort of like saying “verdammt” in German, except of course nobody says that. Every region here in Germany has its own colorful language. Take Bavaria – and take the Schimpfwörter-Quiz.

But Mansbach’s book has in fact been translated into German by Jo Lendle, and the title translation is perfect: “Verdammte Sch*e, schlaf ein!” It’s sparked controversy among German parents, as summarized in the Atlantic Wire (with sample translations.)

Would I teach the various uses of “the f*ck”? We’ve discussed this before, but I’m revisiting the issue.  In my EFL classes, the most popular phrase, WTF, is generally acquired correctly anyway and learners won’t really have much occasion to use the other phrases until they are deeply enculturated and using them would be appropriate, by which time they’ll be acquired. I generally react to the way learners use language in class, so of course if students used incorrect phrases like “I’m not going to the f*ck do this!” I would correct to “I’m not the f*ck going to do this”, to get at least the grammar cleared up. LOL. But learners don’t, you see, so I haven’t! Thinking through acquisition and learning, I get the sense that even a long chunk like “Where the f*ck do you think you’re going (e.g. with my bicycle)?” will be acquired seemlessly if the affective filter is low enough. So the chunk will be acquired, but its appropriacy – who thinks what is ok, and where and when – must be taught. So, yes, “the f*ck” should most definitely be a part of the curriculum.

Putting this stuff out there is what blogs and Moodles are for! Many thanks to Eamonn for posting the link.

PS: Ash just posted that an Englishman would say “go to f’cking sleep.” Really? Not “Will you f*cking go to sleep”?

Biedermeier style, brought to the bourgeois world of housing modest clothing with light bloom sentimentality. Later, arrogant style of the era gave this tongue-in-cheek nickname “Biedermeier” (the word “Biedermeier” – “Mr. Meyer bravy” – as a synonym for philistinism introduced into use Eyhgodt poet).

From the cold, aristocratic Biedermeier Empire inherited the basic principles of building and laconicism. Bourgeois consciousness meet such style format in which the emphasis was on practicality. The measure of household belongings, furniture, considered, above all, the qualities of strength, sound, comfort.

In the era of Biedermeier furniture, we can already find most of the modern types. Never before has the furniture was not so “furniture” in nature, that is free of architectural forms and alien decor. The measure of quality furniture now considered forms of comfort and impeccable carpentry work.

Ease of furniture offset by bright colors and obivok curtain, ornamented motives pornography treated flowers. In this era emerged and the so-called “clean room” (living). The space forcing a large number of rooms of furniture, which seek grouped in the center and besides, so that emptiness remained as little as possible.

There’s nothing like a translation program to mangle language – and to produce an entirely new and exciting pornographic era of design inherited from the cold, based on strength, sound and comfort! Yes! Man, those Biedermeiers must have known something.

A note on translation: With this particular poem I found you really do have to change the sequence of adjectives in English. I also found it interesting to consider the different meanings of “little” and “klein” (descriptive, diminutive, romantic/endearing…) In German, for example, Little Red Riding Hood is simply Rotkäpchen. I briefly considered writing “Tiny ancient god“. Or “Little, ancient god“, after all? Still thinking it over.

My brother Chris first introduced me to the poem when he gave me these, from a cycle he drew in the ’70s, pastels and wash on paper: