The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-19
Ladies' UndermusIins

the bird is staying in the blacksmith
shop 'Wegen' Con account of den re-
gen. Then the teacher lets me softly
down with the remark that whenever
the word 'wegen' drops into a sentence,
1t always throws the subject into the
gentive case, regardless of conse-
quenc9s-and therefore this bird stayed
In the blacksmith shop 'wegen des re-
gems
IN. b was informed later by a
higher authority that there was an
exception which permits one to say
'Wegen den regen,' in certain peculiar
and complex circumstances, but that
this exception is not extended to any
thing but rain.
There are ten parts of speech, and
they are all troublesome. An average
sentence in a German newspaper is a
sublime and impressive curiosity; it
occupies a quarter of column; it con-
tains all the ten parts of speech-not
in regular order, but mixed; it is built
mainly of compound words constructed
by the writer on the spot, and not to
be found in any dictionary-six or sew
en- words cOmpacted into one, without
joint or seam-that is without hyphen;
1t treats of fourteen or fifteen different
subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis
of its own, with here and there extra
parenthesis, which inclose three or
parentheses are massed together be-
tween a couple of king parentheses, one
of which is placed in the first line of
the majestic sentence and the other in
the middle of the last line of it-after
which comes the verb, and you find
out for the first time what the man
has been talking about; and after the
verb, merely by way of ornament, as
far as can make out, the writer SHOW
els in 'Haben sind geWesen gehabt ha-
ben geworden Sein, or words to that
effect, and the monument is finished.
81 suppose that this closing hurrah
is in the nature of a flourish to the
mans signature-not necessary, but
pretty.
German books are easy enough to
read when you hold them up against
a mirror, or stand on your head-so
as to reverse the construction-but l
think that to learn to read and under
stand German newspaper is a thing
which must always remain an impos-
sibility to a foreigner.
'In the German language, it is true
that by some oversight the inventor
Of the language, a woman is female;
but a wife (weib) is not, which is un-
fortunate. A wife here has no sex;
she is neuter; so, according to the
she, but a fishwife is neither. To de-
scribe a wife as sexless, may be called
under description; that is bad enough,
but over-description is surely worse.
A German speaks of an Englishman
as the Highlander; to change the sex
he adds inn,' and that stands for
Englishwoman-'Eng landerinn.'
THAT seems descriptive enough, but
still it is not exact enough for Ger
man, so he precedes the word with
that article which indicates that the
creature to follow is feminine, and
writes it down thus: Die Englander-
inn'-which means the she English
woman L consider that person is
overdescribed.
"Well, after the student has learned
the sex of a great number of nouns,
he is still in difficulty, because he finds
it impossible to persuade his tongue to
refer to things as he and she and
him and her which it has always
been accustomed to refer to as it