A Letter from God

A few days ago I received a letter in the mail that shook me to the core. It was a Cease and Desist Order direct from God himself.

September 7, 2008

Dear Mr. Kenneth W. Fager,

It has come to our attention that you, Kenneth W. Fager, have continued to praise The Almighty and His Subsidiaries® without the expressed written consent of the LORD.

The LORD, Jesus, and Holy Ghost are hereby issuing Kenneth W. Fager a CEASE AND DESIST order. Under the terms of His Divine Plan (4000 B.C) section 40 paragraph 7 “The LORD has the authority to designate whom among His Creation (in this case Kenneth W. Fager) will be granted the gift of the Gospel (see New Testament for more information). The LORD also retains the right to revoke said gift of the Gospel.”

According to our records Kenneth W. Fager received a Notice of Divine Revocation on April 26, 2008. In direct defiance of the Notice of Divine Revocation clauses, Kenneth W. Fager has continued to praise The Almighty and His Subsidiaries®.

If public or private praise of The Almighty and His Subsidiaries® continues past September 14 then The LORD et al will seek monetary damages to the tune of € 1,700,000,000,000,000.

Unconditional Love,
Yahweh
Jesus H. Christ
Holy Ghost

Undersigned:
Weinstein Legal Partners

PS: I’m just kidding mate. You are one of my favorites. Keep on praisin’. I’ll leave the door open for when you come home in six months. – GOD

Imagine my relief when I read that last line. Being sued for Euros? How could I ever pay that off with the horrid exchange rate? I’m glad He’s got a sense of humor.

A Natural Birth

It is getting to the point in my life where my friends are getting pregnant. I know that natural childbirth involves a lot of pain, pushing, and a higher degree of danger for the expecting mother. For years I thought this meant stringing up the pregnant mother to a tree and having a good whack at her piñata style until the child was delivered. I have just recently learned that this is false. This is what happens when parents don’t talk to their children about the birds and the bees. Do you really want your kids filling in the gaps themselves?

Ken’s German Lessons – Supernouns

Nouns are the words for persons, places, things, or abstract qualities.

In English we capitalize personal names because in America we like to raise kids to think “everyone is special in their own way.” You aren’t. Everyone has a capital letter in front of their name. You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. The word “I” is always going to be capitalized too.

Names of official places, offices, and points of location are also capitalized. New York, Wisconsin, Honolulu, Lake Titicaca, Fire Department, Triangle City Square, Wal-Mart Avenue, and Dave’s Discount Urologist Megamart/Payday Loans. Got it? Super.

So are formal titles like our last unquestionably and legitimately elected Commander in Chief, President Clinton. As far as I’m concerned Mr. Bush is about all the respect the current guy holding the office deserves. When Senator Obama is elected we will refer to him as President Obama. If Senator McCain is elected I will seek asylum in Germany.

Writing the noun for another foreign language needs to be capitalized. English, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Newspeak, etcetera ad nauseum until English is the only language left due to globalization.

All other things and abstract qualities that make up the rest of all nouns are not capitalized. Unless it appears as the first word in a sentence, then “noun” isn’t even capitalized. English is cruel and confusing like that.

So what makes German nouns, or Übernomen as I like to call them, superior to English nouns in every way?

In German a Nomen (noun) is always capitalized (notice how I capitalized Nomen earlier in the sentence. Awesome.). Capitalize just the first letter though. Otherwise you run the risk of being one of those ANNOYING PEOPLE WHO FALL ASLEEP ON THE CAPS-LOCK KEY when you write. German words for people, places, things, and abstract qualities all are capitalized no matter where they appear in a sentence. A Nomen is easier to spot in German than in English because 99% of the time it is going to be capitalized. The remaining 1% are reserved for Apple products like the iMac, iPod, iPhone et al.

Let’s take a look at some Nomen in this sentence. Grab a Sharpie marker and circle the Nomen on your computer screen.

Günther Rockmysocksoffenstein (name) besuchte Berlin (place) mit seiner Gitarre (thing) und Schwanken (abstract and questionable translation to follow).

Günther Rockmysocksoffenstein (name) visited Berlin (place) with his Guitar (thing) and swagger (abstract).

German also has a peculiar rule when it comes to nouns. If you are a boy read Boy Paragraph A, if you are a girl read Girl Paragraph B.

Boy Paragraph A:
Remember when you were a young boy and you would mash two toy cars together simulating a horrible accident? Well imagine that each car is a noun. Now mash the two noun-cars together. Walla! The horrible pile of shorn metal you’ve smashed is now one whole new noun – a.k.a. compound noun.

Girl Paragraph B:
Remember when you were a young girl and you would put your Barbie dolls on top of each other pretending they were kissing? Well imagine that Barbie and Ken each symbolized a noun. Now mash their lips together and wait nine months. The love-child-noun that Barbie and Ken created is a new word entirely – a.k.a. compound noun.

A compound noun is two German Nomen mashed together. It is theoretically possible to mash as many coherent nouns together to adequately describe the intricate details of a person, place, thing, or abstract quality.

One such legitimate example would be: Donaudampfshiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenskajuetenschluesseloch

This would roughly translate to: The keyhole of the door of the cabin of the captain of a steamship 
company operating on the Danube

The primary piece of advice Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy gives us is “don’t panic.” This is meaningful advice in this scenario as most German compound nouns are not that long. Most are a logical combination of just two or three words.

Try to guess what you get when you combine the German word for “main” and “city” together. Haupt + Stadt = Haupstadt or capital city. Let’s try it with three words crammed into one. Take the German words for “arm” and “band” along with “clock.” Arm + Band + Uhr = Armbanduhr or wristwatch. You can see in Hauptstadt and Armbanduhr that only the first letter is capitalized. This is true for all compound nouns. Writing HauptStadt and ArmBandUhr would be incorrect.

Be aware that compacting words together and guessing at their logical meaning is not always so easy. One of my favorite Nomen has no real definitive English translation. That word is Schadenfreude. As a compound noun Schadenfreude is comprised of the words for “to harm/do damage” and “joy/happiness.” Schaden + Freude = Schadenfreude or “the enjoyment of another’s pain or suffering.” Why do you laugh when you see a home video of someone getting hit in a sensitive area during ABC’s primetime TV programming? It is a bit of an abstract concept, but that is what Schadenfreude is. You laugh because someone else got hurt.

Example:
Ich sah in dem Fernseher Bob Sagets Hoden geschlagen und fühlte Schadenfreude.

I saw Bob Saget’s manbits get clubbed on TV and it made me feel (a guilty kind of) happy.

Perpetual capitalization and the intimidation factor presented by compound nouns are why German nouns are superior to English nouns in every way fathomable. If you think that’s the end of it, you would be wrong. There is even more to the Übernomen that I have not covered. Nomen have a feature that is absent in English, namely the assignment of one of four possible genders. That, my friends, will have to wait for another day. I just blew your minds and you’ll need some time to clean the itty bits of brain from the inside of your skull.

Addendum: Nomen is not to be confused with the club NoMen on 19th and Harrison Avenue down by the docks. I totally made a fool of myself trying to pick up chicks there once. The dance music was really good though.

Corrections and suggestions are welcome via the comments.