The awful (use of the beautiful) german language.

In an attempt to regain some of my interest in physics I borrowed a book from the university library: "Ideengeschichte der Physik" by Wilfried Kuhn. The title means "a history of ideas in physics". It is a most frustrating book, for once I get past the language barrier it is most interesting. Sadly, I rarely manage this.

I like to think that I can read german, but when I see these sentences (the translation and bold highlighting is from me) I give up.

Stephan Gray amazed his audience with "Homo electrificatus", A with threads of horse's hair on the ceiling secured free-swinging electrically charged lad

or

The discovery of Ewald Juergen von Kleist had been by the Physicist from Leiden, Petrus van Muschenbroek (1692-1761), author of the standard experimental physics textbook of his time, published.

My only consolation myself is the knowledge that I Mark Twain had similar difficulties. Twain claimed that some newspapers went to print without ever reaching the verb at the end of the sentence, and used this example to make his point:

But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) government counselor's wife met

Twain then rants away,

A writer's ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching people and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the woman's dress. That is manifestly absurd

May I suggest that it is equally absurd to say that something yet to be revealed is being held from the ceiling by horse's hair, or to include an entire lifespan of 69 years between an auxiliary and a past participle. I really want to understand, but it is way beyond me.

For completeness, here are the original german sentences.

Der Englaender Stephen Gray (1666-1736) verblueffte sein Publikum mit dem "Homo electrificatus", einem mit Schnueren aus Rosshaar an der Decke befestigten frei schwebenden elektrisch aufgeladenen Knaben.

und

Die Entdeckung des Ewald Juergen von Kleist hatte der Leidener Physiker Petrus van Muschelbroek (1692-1761), Verfasser eines Standardlehrbuches der Experimentalphysik seiner Zeit, veroeffentlicht.

Practical problems arouse.

I continued learning English this week. I know now the difference between like and such as (explained here), and between using and utilising (explained here).

Now try to analyse these sentences:

1/ Your best friend says to you

"I wish to have a girlfriend like yours."
"I wish to have a girlfriend such as yours."

The first would be a fine compliment, the second a threat.

2/ I may say

"I used my keyboard to type this sentence."
"I utilised my keyboard to beat to death the guy next to me, who is still listening to Roxette very loudly."

I now read things with a keener eye, and spotted a lovely mistake in a book about ultrasound that I'm reading:

Ideas of three-dimensional (3D) imaging of organs by beam scanning in 3D directions, was first introduced in the 50'ies, but severe practical problems arouse...

The author of the book is Norwegian and knows a lot about ultrasound, so I firmly place any blame at the hands of his publishers and their proofreader. Every time I read this sentence, I find another mistake, but the really good one is arouse instead of arose. Getting turned on by severe practical problems must be quite distracting for most scientists.

A Witty Short Fresh English Electronic Blog Post.

I found out this week that I have a lot to learn about writing in English. My new colleagues assume that because I grew up in England, I know the rules of English grammmar and am capable of correcting their papers. To prove how wrong they are (I went to a compriensif skool, tha nos) I took this test on hyphenation and got 70%.

70% in an exam isn't too bad, but leaves enough mistakes. If you extrapolate a 70% success rate to an article several pages long, and include mistakes with commas and capitalisation, then the corrected article almost certainly contain several mistakes.

I am waiting for the first colleague to come and beat me up whilst holding a letter from a Journal saying, "We accept your paper for publication, but maybe you could get a native English speaker to proof-read the article before we publish it."

Of great fun is the "Royal Order of Adjectives", which explains why you drive an old red Italian sports car, and not a Italian red old sports car.

Change of profile.

I should have done this a couple of weeks ago, but now I have a new blog description. For the record, the old one was as follows.

The diary of a physicist being paid by the german government to go on holiday for 6 weeks.

The perils of prefixes.

It is possible to change the meaning of many german verbs by using a prefix. "Zer-" is usually bad and leads to destruction.

stören : to disturb => zerstören : to destroy

"Ver-" is not quite so bad as "Zer-", but is rarely good.

schlafen : to sleep => verschlafen : to sleep for too long

"Er-" is worse than "Ver-", and debatably as bad as "Zer-", for it ends in certain death.

schiessen : to shoot => erschiessen : to shoot dead

I once got confused between being stung by a wasp: "Ich wurde von einer Wespe gestochen." and being stabbed to death by a wasp: "Ich wurde von einer Wespe erstochen."

Today I made another prefix mistake. I was trying to say "I furnished my room" and ended up claiming "I executed my room". One letter, one prefix, and a rather different meaning.

Things I've been meaning to write about...

... if I managed to get my computer situation sorted out are

1/ The Kunigunde lime tree in Kasberg
2/ "The physics of the Ether" by Paul Drude
3/ The renaissance of English one-day cricket and the Duckworth-Lewis method of deciding the winner of a rain-affected cricket match.

My problem is thus:

a/ I decided not to surf the internet for private stuff on my work computer.
b/ I decided that it is quite nice not to have a computer with internet in my flat. In the past week I read two-and-a-half books, ate quite well, and kept the flat clean. I fear that I wouldn't have done all of this had I been hooked up.
c/ I can't be bothered to type all of these things in internet cafes which seem to be full of people talking in turkish (Ali! Ali!), playing the "Greatest hits of Roxette as interpreted by the Chipmunks" on their iPod or doing lots of other annoying things.

I think the solution is to try and find a computer at the university which is not in my office but which I can use for blogging purposes (maybe in the library).

Vfl Bochum 0 - 1. FC Nuremberg 2

I thought there was something symbolic about this football match, seeing that I've left Erlangen (which is close to Nuremberg) to go to Bochum. Seeing as there was nothing else I really wanted to do on a rainy Sunday in Bochum I decided to go along.

The fist goal for Nuremberg came in the 88th minute, the second shortly after, but the Bochum fans standing next to me sort of knew what was coming, having seen an impressive display of comical finishing from their team in the second half. The players had the good grace to fall to the floor having lost the match and the fans seemed to accept that they had lost due to a lack of skill rather than lack of effort.

Feierabend

I went to work today, and am now enjoying that relieved feeling at the end of a working day. Germans like to call this Feierabend (literally celebration evening).

My first work project is to help prepare an exam about electromagnetism. I've forgotten almost everything I knew about this subject, so I had to get a textbook from the library. I was most pleased to see my old friend "Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating Systems" by Edward Jordan and Keith Balmain. It is a delightful book, although a little dated. Luckily electromagnetic theory hasn't changed over the last 50 years, although labour relations, feminism and household appliances have come on a bit since the 50's, as demonstrated by the following quote from the book.

A man can do work for a 12-hour day at the rate of about 40 Watts, which is less than the power required to run his wife's electric washing machine.