River Cruising Water Cooler

[Host Jazzbeau]

You've told us before how many semi-autonomous divisions Germania has – but isn't All Gaul still Divided Into Three Parts?  Otherwise, why did I waste all that time in first-year Latin???

[gnome12]

52 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Otherwise, why did I waste all that time in first-year Latin???

I never took Latin, however, I did study French from Grade 4 to Grade 12, not that I can speak it much. However, when I took a course in Italian for Travellers before a trip to Italy, when we got to the past tense there was a total split in the class; those who had studied French understood about auxiliary verbs and past participles (the passé composé in French) and those that had other language backgrounds.

 

Strangely, I actually do better in Italian than in French, only from self-study and occasional courses; Italian is completely phonetic, with no silent letters and no elisions.

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, gnome12 said:

Strangely, I actually do better in Italian than in French, only from self-study and occasional courses; Italian is completely phonetic, with no silent letters and no elisions.

I have never studied Spanish, but I find it relatively easy.  Again, pronunciation is very regular – and they only use accents to tell you where to put the stress. 

 

I studied French in high school and college (including six months in Tours) and I can still do French nasals, but I probably sound like Officer Crabtree on 'Allo, 'Allo ["Good moaning..."]

[Canal archive]

Try travelling on a coach filled with Australians, Canadians, New Zealander’s, Brits, Americans oh and a couple each of Norwegians and Koreans all attempting their versions of various characters in Allo Allo and other ancient British sitcoms. I was laughing so much it hurt, the coach driver could not understand until the tour guide explained. I cannot remember who started it but the wine tasting we had just left maybe had something to do with it. CA

[sharkster77]

Language acquisition is a funny thing.  Of our 3 adult children, two of them picked up languages easily in HS/college, while the middle child has always had a struggle with languages.  

[rcaruso]

10 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I have never studied Spanish, but I find it relatively easy.  Again, pronunciation is very regular – and they only use accents to tell you where to put the stress. 

 

I studied French in high school and college (including six months in Tours) and I can still do French nasals, but I probably sound like Officer Crabtree on 'Allo, 'Allo ["Good moaning..."]

I have been watching that show on PBS and had a good chuckle.

[Canal archive]

I have a book that is a very tongue in cheek translations of Officer Crabtree. CA 

[notamermaid]

13 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

You've told us before how many semi-autonomous divisions Germania has – but isn't All Gaul still Divided Into Three Parts?  Otherwise, why did I waste all that time in first-year Latin???

Yes, you are right as far as Caesar's Gaul is concerned, do no panic! And I struggled through De Bello Gallico by the way, nearly threw my school book into the fluvius Rhenus - I was so fed up. But for some strange reason I did not in the end.

 

To write my post I first took a scholarly Roman history lesson (I am overstating it here, took about 15 minutes of Wikipedia, German webpages and google maps) to find out where Lieg would have been in Roman times during Emperor Augustus' reign. They were in Gallia Belgica. In that area the Rhine is not the border of the Roman Empire by the way (it is further downstream). In later years it took in some of Germania to the East of the river. I always proudly claim that I am Celtic-Germanic, was born in the Roman Empire and am different to those uncivilized Germans that live a 30 minute car drive from me up in those hills.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

13 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Try travelling on a coach filled with Australians, Canadians, New Zealander’s, Brits, Americans oh and a couple each of Norwegians and Koreans all attempting their versions of various characters in Allo Allo and other ancient British sitcoms.

I can picture it and would join right in (after a glass of wine). I am a Blackadder person myself and am quite good at impersonating Queenie (we are both a bit childish and mad), but 'Allo 'Allo I like as well. When I think of that series I am reminded of the "eexplodeeng Chreestmas poodeengs". And the "listen carefully I shall say this only once" is an absolute classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-_5JJmNB6E

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

May the Ford be with you

 

Yes, May the fourth is major date in film and fan world, but is also a proper anniversary in the car industry in Germany. Yesterday marked the 90th anniversary of the first automobile "being born" in the Ford factory in Cologne (Niehl). Sadly, the big day was overshadowed by a shortage in delivery of software chips, halting production. I can only find a German article on the anniversary: https://www.americar.de/magazin/news/ford-jubilaeum-90-jahre-made-in-cologne.4915

 

What connects us here on the board with the suburb of Niehl?

 

It is the dock where many river cruise ships are waiting for us.

 

Fun but important fact for more than us river cruisers: the father of Ugur Sahin who is the male half of the couple that with their team developed the BioNTech vaccine came to Germany and worked in the Ford car factory in Cologne. His wife and young Ugur followed him there to Niehl.

 

Ford are embracing the future of electric cars in Cologne, so if you want to know about that, here is the article: https://www.ismr.co.uk/road-sustainable-profitability

 

Our family cars, i.e. my parents and others, were Fords for more than three decades. I started driving with a borrowed Citroen.

 

notamermaid

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by notamermaid

[Canal archive]

My best car ever was a 2CV for the sheer fun of it. CA

[Daisi]

We had a laugh seeing the "rejects" when we went by the factory in Cologne.  

[Host Jazzbeau]

Thanks @notamermaid but your May the Fourth tribute is a few hours late.  Today we celebrate this different holiday:

 

[notamermaid]

I know, I know, I just missed it. Hmm, don't get it. Is there a mayonnaise day, or sewer day? Or is it "everything but the kitchen sink" day?

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

"Cinco de mayo" [say it out loud]

[notamermaid]

49 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

"Cinco de mayo" [say it out loud]

Aaaahh!  💡

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Did you hear the one about the French Prime Minister? Who considers us British and you North American’s both Anglo Saxons, I feel sorry for the Germans and Scandinavians. Maybe we can get the guy some history lessons. I’m getting somewhat worried about our French barge holiday this year. CA

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

No, I did not. Just looked it up. I wonder what he thinks we are here in the Rhineland? Frisian? If you wanted to be precise we are Franks and Celtic and speaking personally for me perhaps a couple of Ubii (from Cologne) are in my blood, but a tribe "Germans" never existed. Caesar coined the word for the many tribes in Germania Magna. I have thought about doing one of these ancestry DNA tests, but I think they are not specific enough for a person like me in the middle of Europe. They work better when you have moved to a completely different part of the world.

 

Mind you, our history here in the area is such a hotchpotch and who was where when, it is difficult to keep track of things. This thing with France and the centralized state with that moloch that you (or rather me - for the British it is easy) try to negotiate round on the way to Normandy is a problem. There is Paris and there is France. Okay, I admit there is also England and there is London. And Berlin is some weird city that somehow managed to sneak away capital status from Bonn. So the Prussians caused the German mess in the first place in 1870 and it went downhill from there. When things finally got better after 1990, they took the capital again from the Rhinelanders who are the better diplomats, ha!

 

But back to France: it appears that this phrase Anglo-Saxon - which we normally only use when referring to history in my language not the modern English, by the way - dates back to Napoleonic times when used in that sense of something the English do (slight undertone of "we are different and possibly better" implied by the French is, err, suggested). Yup, him, who the English thought might invade their island via Sussex (the Southern Saxons' land) and Kent.

 

Which brings me to a different question. Invasion. Why is Macron not proud of the Norsemen of having invaded in 1066 and having turned the Anglo-Saxons into people with table manners and proper food cooking words? May through the French world view out the window...

 

@Canal archive don't give up on that boat trip, just see it all as the Roman civilized empire, safe from invasion from the Germanic, Germans or whatever we are.

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

I remember a joke [but it actually sounds possible] about two ex-Raj gents sitting in their club in London bemoaning the bad governments run by 'Wogs' around the world.  One adds, "I was in France last month and their phone system hardly works either."  And the other says, "Well, I've always held that 'Woggism' begins on the other side of the Channel."  [PS to Brit readers of this post:  if this term is considered taboo, please Report the post and I will delete it.]

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, Canal archive said:

Did you hear the one about the French Prime Minister? Who considers us British and you North American’s both Anglo Saxons, I feel sorry for the Germans and Scandinavians. Maybe we can get the guy some history lessons. I’m getting somewhat worried about our French barge holiday this year. CA

 

 

 

In Israel they call any English speaker an "Anglo-Saxon".

Edited May 7, 2021 by gnome12

[Canal archive]

Jazzbeau I think you covered yourself okay.

Notamermaid was that a Freudian slip as in Norman not Norsemen. If that’s the case our Queen is still Duke of Normandy would you believe and that’s of a country that murdered their Royal family. Mind you go back far enough and the Norsemen have a lot to answer to but they had wonderful names. CA

[notamermaid]

I did mean the "Norsemen" but the ones that had been given a piece of land on the French coast so that they would keep quiet in the rest of what is now modern day France. They became the "Normans" within a short space of time and by 1066 were so more French than Nordic that they are regarded more as French than Norse. And they brought Norman French with them to the island. I was taught in school that the English eat pig but the meat is pork, i.e. the "cooking came" from Norman French. And the word dine is certainly Norman French so they brought the better table manners with them across the channel. Which is my interpretation of events, but I do not mind people disputing that...

 

By the way, the Vikings were a violent bunch of people, not just in the realm of the West Franks/modern France. The came up the Rhine and sacked a few places. The first and second Viking invasions, I think. The third invasion fleet is currently waiting in Cologne Niehl. (I know I am a bad girl, but have you seen how many there are on marinetraffic?? Like an invasion for sure). The Boss is Scandinavian-born, the passengers are a happy benevolent lot these days and do not come from that area normally. In French terms they are "Anglo-Saxon". So does that mean the Anglo-Saxons are coming back home to their Germanic land? Full circle?

 

notamermaid

 

PS:

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

May through the French

Sorry about that, the word was supposed to be throw.

[Canal archive]

I must admit I was working much further back and forgot the Norman/Norseman connection. During the whole COVID debacle they’ve still been TV advertising. Mind you we don’t mind collecting new words for our language whenever we find a word we fancy we just add it then eventually the dictionary elves add it officially. CA

[Host Jazzbeau]

Here's a recipe that should appeal to many here:

Alsace Kugelhopf

[Canal archive]

Looks good reminds me of another type of cake, name defeats me at the moment. CA