My spellchecker does not like the word “sweetpeas;” it insists on a space between sweet and peas. I am sensitive to red-underlined requests from authorities and try to conform, but I am reluctant to allow a computer to dictate how I compound meaning. I am fond of composites just as I am fond of long sentences. Their charm and validity were drilled into me many years ago.
My teachers used to design complicated word labyrinths in which to trap students, whose thoughts, though eager in the morning hours, to ponder the perfection of the human mind, had, by early afternoon, entangled themselves in webs of dense and colorful daydreams.
If word combinations and sentence structure obey rules that are different from their American counterparts, the use of punctuation, especially of apostrophes and quotation marks is even more confusing. German “Apostrophs” make no case for themselves, possessive or otherwise, in “my mothers garden.” And in a German sentence the comma is outside the end quotation mark, but the period is inside. Take a look at the following two sentences. I have written them in English but have given them German punctuation, which includes beginning quotation marks that appear at the bottom and not at the top of the line.
Did he really ask: „Where are the flower children for your mothers garden?”?
She answered: „The flower children are growing on my needles”, and continued to knit her teddy bears.
When I become frustrated with sentence structure and punctuation I do reach for my knitting. And though bamboo needles don’t announce success with noisy clicks, like the old steely speed demons, I listen to their hollow thumps with the same happy anticipation.
“Almost finished. Knit one. Purl one. Almost finished. Knit one. Purl one. Almost finished.”
Bears number nineteen and twenty, finished in the middle of the night, are happy to pose with number eighteen in the garden by the daffodils.
My teachers used to design complicated word labyrinths in which to trap students, whose thoughts, though eager in the morning hours, to ponder the perfection of the human mind, had, by early afternoon, entangled themselves in webs of dense and colorful daydreams.
If word combinations and sentence structure obey rules that are different from their American counterparts, the use of punctuation, especially of apostrophes and quotation marks is even more confusing. German “Apostrophs” make no case for themselves, possessive or otherwise, in “my mothers garden.” And in a German sentence the comma is outside the end quotation mark, but the period is inside. Take a look at the following two sentences. I have written them in English but have given them German punctuation, which includes beginning quotation marks that appear at the bottom and not at the top of the line.
Did he really ask: „Where are the flower children for your mothers garden?”?
She answered: „The flower children are growing on my needles”, and continued to knit her teddy bears.
When I become frustrated with sentence structure and punctuation I do reach for my knitting. And though bamboo needles don’t announce success with noisy clicks, like the old steely speed demons, I listen to their hollow thumps with the same happy anticipation.
“Almost finished. Knit one. Purl one. Almost finished. Knit one. Purl one. Almost finished.”
Bears number nineteen and twenty, finished in the middle of the night, are happy to pose with number eighteen in the garden by the daffodils.
Sweet Pea = Gartenwicke
Daffodil = Narzisse
„Dankeschön!”
Daffodil = Narzisse
„Dankeschön!”
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