MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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I’m always skeptical when I see what messages we humans send into space. Voyager had the famous golden records on board, with a schematic representation of the human anatomy, various mathematical formula, as a universal language, music and sounds from earth. That’s probably okay. Lucy has a plaque with the lyrics of „Lucy in the sky with diamonds“ on it. Is that a good idea? What happens if one of Lucy’s maneuvering thrusters malfunctions, which I hope not, and it drifts out of our solar system?
Picture yourself in a boat on a river of a small green planet, dotted with big red spots. This planet, larger than our Mars but much smaller than Jupiter, orbits at a safe distance around a large red sun. On this world live, shall we say, Humisecs (Human insectoids). The Humanics, as they call themselves, live in small toadstool houses and happily nibble grass all day, until one day something heavy and unknown crashes onto their planet, right at their feet, pardon their antennae: Lucy. At first, the Humanics are very surprised, but then they discover a small plaque on the object, on which a text is written in unknown writing. But for the Humanics no problem, because they have not only six extremities, but also six brains and so the text is quickly translated. And to their great delight, they discover that the strange object comes from a planet, where the female life forms have kaleidoscope eyes, just like the Humanics, ride rocking horses, eat all day marshmallow pies and live under a sky that shimmers jam bread red, just like their own sky. Full of joy at having finally met an intelligent life form just like themselves, the Humanics board their spaceships, not without first loading up on decent amounts of strawberries. Humanics love strawberries more than anything else and the red spots on their planet are nothing else than huge strawberry fields, which can already be seen from space. Some time and two wormholes later, they land on the unknown planet Earth, in a city where people call themselves Liverpudlians and like to eat scouse. Directly beside a small church, on whose way still lie grains of rice from the last wedding and old, stuffed socks on a clothesline hang. And while the Humanics get out of their spaceship, they are curiously observed by a face in a jar by the door and the bells of the church intonate a melody that seems strangely familiar to them: „Strawberry Fields for ever“ and all of a sudden they have the feeling of having arrived home again. That would be a nice first contact, wouldn’t it?
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A song that fits well into the mood of autumn (but this time I checked carefully: the song does not yet exist here in the topic, or is it ?! 🙂 )
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David, you’re right: there really isn’t that much music on the theme of autumn. And if there is, then it’s rather sad songs. Then just the classics:
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Thanks Tom. The Big Three (among many other geniuses) of science fiction literature. I „devoured“ “Dune”, although the second and the third part become a bit long winded. The later books of the cycle, I think there were three, then I have no longer read. My idols are Douglas Adams (such beautiful crazy stories), Stanislaw Lem (probably little known in the US, he has written very challenging, but sometimes also very crazy stories), H.G. Wells, and Jules Verne. But also Tom Sharpe, although not a science fiction author, I like very much. Philip K. Dick had a lot of interesting ideas (but he has also taken many „interesting“ drugs). Do you like reading science fiction or fantasy?
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Porsche? Never heard of, Jung. Don’t they make watches? I drive a 15 year old diesel car. This is the noise I was referring to. You must have misstressed the “m” in the word “warum”. Emphasis “u” = sports car. Emphasis “m” = diesel car. If you don’t believe me: Ask David. 🙂
„went“ „kaputt“ = „ging kaputt“ = infinitiv: „kaputtgehen“ WOW Jung, I am deeply impressed. Be honest, surely you already speak fluent German.
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A very nice and for me previously unknown song by Neil Young.
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You have gone your own way, Jacki. That is what is important nothing else matters. Scottish and Irish are very special again. Hats off to you that you can understand and speak these dialects. In northern Germany there are still a few dialects that are related to the English and Dutch languages. What the Scottish or Irish accent is for you, the North German dialect is for me. But I don’t understand these dialects and can’t speak them either.
By the way, Hamburger „schnaken platt“ or love “Klönschnack” (they speak “Low German” or „Plattdeutsch“) and greet you with: Moin, Moin (that means: good morning, good day, good afternoon, good evening, good night. Whatever you want). Just as Mona and Lisa greeted you in their video: Moin, Moin.
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Well, good question David. I had English lessons for about 8 years and I don’t remember the differences ever being explicitly addressed. The teachers probably didn’t know much about the differences themselves. American English was never really an issue, the American accent didn’t play a role in their world view. In the last two years of English, current affairs from daily newspapers and political topics were discussed. Then we also listened to speeches by J.F. Kennedy or M.L. King. Yes, that sounded quite different. In answer to your question: We started with British English and finished with British English (sometimes oxford englisch). The generation of German English teachers I met, enjoyed Shakespeare and other historical writers.
I imagine myself sitting in an English pub and ordering a beer: “Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness”. And if I don’t like the beer, I simply say: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. That’s just as helpful for everyday life as Jakob the cheeky bird.
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Very well explained, David. I will pay close attention next time I go to the dentist.
(I am still relaxed with these two sounds. But when I hear that high penetrating sound from the drill, I always get a bit nervous).
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Yes very funny you two.
Thanks Jung. You are right. My car also sounded like this for a while, but since I got a new starter battery: no problems anymore.
David, waruuuuuuuuum, waruuuuuuuum ?
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A very nice gesture and apparently he wrote it in his own words.
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Hi Tom, French, Spanish and English? Wow, you can communicate almost all over the world with that, great. I would have liked to learn Spanish too. Where did you learn it?
Jurgen is okay. I know the English keyboard doesn’t have umlaute. I think my parents should have given me a name without umlaute. In Asia, an airline almost refused to take me once: JUERGEN was written on the ticket and Jürgen in my passport. They just compared letter for letter and it just didn’t fit. But as you can see, I made it home after all.
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Thanks very much for the translation of the song lyrics and the short interview excerpt with Paul Mc Cartney, David. Very funny. „Jakob war der frecheste Vogel, den ich je gesehen habe” (Jacob was the cheekiest bird I have ever seen). As Paul Mc Cartney rightly said: not really helpful in real life. I think they learned more in that one year in Hamburg than they ever did in their entire school career (But my English lessons during school were sometimes not much better).
