American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1880-07-31
Some Pathological CuriOsitics.
In my notebook I find this entry:

In my notebook I find this entry:
July LIN the hospital yesterday 8
word of thirteen syllables was success.
fully removed from patient-a North
German from near Hamburg; but as
most unfortunately the surgeons hal
opened him in the wrong place, under
the impression that he contained a
panorama, he died. The sad event
has cast gloom over the whole commu-
nifty.
That paragraph furnishes text for
a few remarks about one of the most
curious and notable features of my sub
ject-the length of German words.
Some German words are so long that
they have perspective. Observe these
examples:
Observation-Disclosures
tenaufdringlichkeiten.
Stadtyerordn etenversammlungen-
These things are not words; they are
alphabetical professions. And they are
not rare; one can open German news
paper any time and see them march
ing majestically across the page-and
if he has any imagination he can see
the banners and hear the music, too.
They impart a martial thrill to the
meanest subject. 1 take a great inter-
est in these curiosities. Whenever I
come across good one, stuff it and
put it in my museum. In this way
have made quite valuable collection.
When get duplicates. exchange with
other collectors, and thus increase the
variety of my stock. Here are some
specimens which lately bought at an
auction sale of the effects of bankrupt
bric-a-brac hunter:
Generalstaatsverordnete en- versammlungen.
Northumberland
KinderbewahrungsaIs iten.
Upabhaengigk eitscr S iaem eiren.
Observation-Disclosures tngen.
Observation-Disclosures.
OF course when one of these grand
mountain ranges goes stretching across
the printed page it adOrns and enobles
that literary landscape. but at the same
time it is great distress to the new stu
dent, for il blocks up his way; he can
not crawl under it, or climb over it, or
tunnel through it. So he resorts to the
dictionary for help; but there is no help
there. The dictionary must draw the
line somewhere-so it leaves this sort
of words out. And it is right, because
these long things are hardly legitimate
words, but are rather combinations of
words, and the inventor of them ought
to have been killed. They are COM
pound words, with the hyphens left out.
The various words used in building
them are in the dictionary, but in very
scattered condition SO you can hunt
the materials out, one by one, and get
at the meaning at last, but it is tedi-
Gus and harrassing business. 1 have
tried this process upon some of the
above examples. 4" Freundschafts-
bezeigungen seems to be .Friend-
shipdemonstrations," which is only
foolish and clumsy way of saying
demonstrations of friendship" ''Un-
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. seems to
be ..Independencedecla which
is no Improvement on Declarations of
independence" as far as L can
see. g OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
ammlungen" seems to be General
misrepresentation as near
ly as l can get at TIA mere myth
zeal, gushy euphemism for meetings of
the Legislature" 1 Judge. We used
to have a good deal of this sort of
crime in our literature, but it has gone
out now. We used to speak Of
thing as ''never-to- be-forgotten' cir
cumstance, instead of cramping it into
the simple and sufficient word ''mem-
orable," and then going calmly about
our business as if nothing had hap
pened. In those days we were not con-
tent to embalm the thing and bury it
decently, we wanted to build a monu-
ment over it.-Frons .. The Tramp
Abroaet," by Mark ItOain.