A two-purpose post…. First, the need for a “common sense clause” in the legal system. This clause would give the jury or judge (the party employing this “common sense” clause, judge or jury, would override the other) the option to legally enforce a “you all need to go to your rooms and think about what you’ve done” verdict for the case. When would this be used? If someone spills a hot beverage on themselves and thinks they can sue the distributor of said beverage… And isn’t there some story floating around about an RV company being sued because the driver didn’t know that cruise control differed from “automatic pilot”? Enough of this paragraph, it is barely related to the second issue (and inspiration of this pointless rant)….
The post’s second purpose….to criticize an instance of excessive legality with which we are all too familiar. Everyone has seen the “don’t publish any little bit of this book” statement in the copyright page of nearly every publication. Naturally, I will not directly quote any part of it for fear of breaking the law. But you can read it here if you want (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22No+part+of+this+publication%22). Someone needs to address some inherent problems with this statement. Maybe we can write a more appropriate one.
Read the statement….yep, the link above….ok…..what constitutes a part of a book? One might rightly fear a lawsuit after copying a complete sentence of a book. One might irrationally fear a lawsuit after realizing that many of the words they write everyday are also found in said book… Or what about common knowledge/conventional phrases/ stuff that just doesn’t matter/etc.? A self-constructed list of common expressions in a foreign language should certainly not be considered a copyright infringement against numerous language resources (which happen to be infringing on each other).
Is this all over the top? Yes…. Section 107 of the Copyright Act prevents against the possible confusion detailed above. Nevertheless, the all too familiar warning at the beginning of the books has way too many words in it….that’s all I really want to say. And the picture these words portray is unnecessarily restrictive. Can’t transmit anything, by any means? Come find me as I recite a sentence from my favorite novel to my friend over the telephone. Why use legal jargon when the multitude of mumbo-jumbo adds up to something impractical and unfeasible? How ’bout something like….”Don’t do anything with this book that violates the Copyright Act. If you’re unsure if an action is in violation, it is suggested that you put the book down, grab a snack from the fridge, and vegetate until you forget what you were going to do in the first place.” At least this wording is accurate and clear!
Feel free to copy as much of this post as you want.
Acid-free paper…could we get a a run for a few years in the stock market from this?
(Logo here)
As you may have noticed from the title of this post, we still have not opened the German book that we are supposed to be rigorously studying. (Please do not note how much time has passed since the post “Judging a Book by its Cover“) Nevertheless, the German book in our possession, German: A Self-Teaching Guide (Second Edition), possesses a back cover worthy of superfluous analysis. There are many reasons why our attention spans were derailed after flipping this book over…. And each of these reasons reveals much about life…. (Ok, maybe not…but you will certainly gain something from reading this rambling rant on the reverse of our German reference…or maybe you won’t…)
Be careful of the adjectives you use, you might just have to live up to them: Within the content found on the back cover of the above-mentioned book, numerous self-indulgent adjectives can be found. Does one really have a right to proclaim oneself as “clear,” “entertaining,” or “fresh”? Marketing is necessary both on book covers and in your own professional life, but what might exploration of a style of direct, no-nonsense marketing yield? For example, “This book has more than enough German vocabulary to successfully handle countless conversations, and we’ve tried to structure the lessons in a format that gives the illusion of order to the content. Now it is up to you to actually open this book and put in the necessary effort to not only read the information, but work with it until a level of conversational comfort is developed. Best wishes on your journey!” There are numerous practical applications for this straightforward tone.
You are not up-to-date: Of all adjectives that you might wish to apply to yourself, avoid “up-to-date.” If you truly believe in constant change and adapting to the times, this adjective becomes invalid the second after it is used. How’s this for irony? After seeing this adjective more than once on the back cover of above-mentioned German book, one looks below and sees prices for the USA, Canada, and UK. A quick glance at the exchange rate proves the futility of trying to be “up-to-date” (with the poor Canadians getting ripped off and those with British pounds saving a bit of money).
Enough of the back cover….no one looks at it anyway……
If you travel a lot, you probably have a lot of phrasebooks. Maybe you have become quite adept at looking up a needed phrase, remembering it for ten seconds, successfully uttering said phrase, and then becoming discombobulated as you try to absorb even a single syllable of the response being hurtled at you.
Phrasebooks have their purpose… But can they also be a valuable learning tool in the study of a foreign language? Absolutely! Let us analyze the simple question – Sprechen Sie Deutsch? – and see what can be gleaned.
Phrasebooks are tools for observing the grammatical structure of foreign sentences: First, a word-for-word translation…Speak you German? There’s the first piece of information, a proper sentence structure for a simple question consisting of a verb, subject, and direct object. In this case, verb-subject-direct object? By retaining this structure, many questions can be formed later with additional vocabulary.
Phrasebooks are tools for practicing verb conjugations: From the sample sentence above, we see that the verb used above, sprechen, when conjugated for the pronoun Sie, retains the same form as it does in the infinitive. Using a phrasebook to its full depth would now involve restating the sentence with a properly conjugated verb for all possible pronouns.
Phrasebooks reveal details about the language: In this example, we might ask, “Why is Sie used for you instead of the du from my conjugation chart?” Or we might wonder, “Is there a reason that every word in this sentence is capitalized?” A quick online search will help you understand some of the oddities of the language you are studying.
By using a phrasebook to its full extent, you’ll find yourself having to open it less often!
If you’re American, you’ve probably met more than one John Smith in the course of your life. I would bet that there are a few Jan Johansson figures in Sweden that one might run into in the course of a lifetime there. But how many names does one encounter on a day-to-day basis that are completely overlooked? This post is dedicated to a variety of coincidences: First, people who have the same name. Secondly, people who have the same name from entirely different life paths who happened to be noticed by a person who likes remembering trivial bits of information. Thirdly, people from entirely different life paths with similar names who are not only noticed and remembered by said person, but whose unforeseen linking somehow fatefully merges to tangentially related areas of the observer’s life. And so…..a presentation of two people named Werner Haas. For the moment two…..who knows when a third might arise? To any Werner Haas out there…feel free to leave a comment and get some free publicity!
Werner Haas – the German pianist who lived from 1931-1976. Recorded the complete works of Debussy.
Werner Haas – Co-author of German: A Self Teaching Guide. Former professor of German at Ohio State University. I know his book was in use at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz during the summer of 2010.
