american studies quotations

[Tortenhuber]

I am studying american studies at the university of Dresden, hence I have got the possibility to tell you some contemporary quotes, from american cultural studies (mainly) and some others. I will only post the funniest / most important ones which I think are most striking.


American cultural studies:
(we were just discussing about the American system of justice)
I: "So we can say, that the phrase 'legal' is just a matter of perspective?"
lecturer: "Of course!"

(This is the most impressive one to me, since it is more true than some of us admit)


GLC1 Grammar:

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks Spanish, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it is all organised by the Swiss.
Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics Spanish, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organised by the Italians.


there are more to come but I am currently a bit lazy, so stay tuned

 

[Franziskaner]

Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics Spanish, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organised by the Italians.[/b]

And i thought, Hell is where the cooks are British, the taxi drivers are turkish and the germans are responsible for humor...

 

[Tortenhuber]

maybe this is another religion

 

[Tortenhuber]

GLC 1 Grammar:

Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

If -

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!




very nice poem, isn't it?

 

[blaXXer]

the german police is way more horrible than german humor...

 

[elvissa]

@blaXXer

you live in bavaria, right?

 

[MrMister]

At least the german police does not shoot at colored people

 

[Tortenhuber]

yeah, but only because there's no telling what the media is going to do!


some more quotes:

Literature:

We were talking about Hamlet ( ) and the lecturer told us, that in one special performance directed by Keniff Braniff (real name sounds similiar) Hamlet is wearing black clothes all the time. And then:

student: "... but he dies in white."
lecturer: "Yes and why?"
student: "they took off their jackets!"





American Studies:

Lecturer: "...so even some governments can do some good things." (meaning the Anti-trust-Law)

Some minutes earlier our course-smart-aleck started another of his blethering-contests with "I don't actually know but ....."



some minutes later we listened to an interview with howard zinn, I don't remember the whole context but he was speaking about crime. Giving the gist of what he said:

".... if some guy on the street grabs your bag and runs away, then we call this crime. If some workers in a giant company are suffering under their bad working conditions, get low wages and therefore might even die earlier, then we call this business."
(I would be glad if anyone posts what he really said, I just created a similiar text which conveys the same idea.)

 

[blaXXer]

@blaXXer

you live in bavaria, right?

ahemmm...NO I live in RLP...

 

[Tortenhuber]

American Cultural Studies, Monday 12th January:

http://torte.duftbaum.com/Pics/1.jpg
http://torte.duftbaum.com/Pics/2.jpg

both less than 80 Kbyte and about the state of education in the USA

 

[Tortenhuber]

Well, today I had another enlightment on american studies. Some excerpts:

- "Removal" of native Americans despite fulfilled requirements (by the white setllers) like a governmental system of democracy is called "irony of history". Those native Americans were removed because of economical reasons.
- Native Americans suffered from diseases* than from war and removal with / by white settlers.
- Today's status of native Americans goes back to the treaties between them and the white setllers.


Yet I don't know which of these statements is the most embarrassing one but one thing is for sure: none of them is true.


* I think she didn't realize that those diseases came from Europe and some white settlers even did biological warfare on natives by giving them blankets which were infected with smallpox.

 

[Tortenhuber]

and thats one interesting copy:

 

[Sedge]

torte, can you tell me why "constantine" (the movie)
is pronounced like "constan[tiin]" and not "constan[tain]"?

 

[Tortenhuber]

first of all, pronounciation does not necessarily depend on the letters used in the word, and of course some names "behave" totally different (ie. names of foreign cities, or foreigners).

imho the <tine> in <constantine> should be pronounced like /tain/, as you said and I guess your version /ti:n/ (/i:/ long i) was created by germans who tried to apply the rules of pronounciation correctly (but failed ^^). but lets do some empirical studies:

words pronounced /ti:n/ in final position:

Benedictine (in AmE, BrE /tin/)
brilliantine
canteen*
dentine
eighteen*
elephantine
fifteen*
fourteen*
guillotine
libertine
nicotine
nineteen*
philistine
poteen*
preteen*
pristine
protein*
quarantine
routine
serpentine
seventeen*
sixteen*
teen*
thirteen*
umpteen*
velveteen*

(* words without <*tine> as a written representation)

so there are 13 words with <*tine> which is pronounced /ti:n/ but there are also 14 words with /ti:n/ in final position without the written represantion <*tine>.

lets now look at <*tine> pronunced /tain/

clementine
elephantine (BrE)
Holstein
philistine
serpentine (BrE)
stein
tine
turpentine
valentine

=> 9 words with correct written represantion and 2 without.

so what does this tell us?

- from an empirical point of view it's more likely that <*tine> is pronouncend /ti:n/ and Britons might tend to pronounced it /tain/, BUT, however, there might also be a diachronic approach to this problem (meaning a historical approach, in terms of linguists), and I honestly do not know diachronic linguistics good enough to conclude anything. but google seems worth a try (links at bottom of posting). The general point of diachronic linguistics is to say this and that happened without giving any reasons (that is what they do: they tell you what happened, but can neither tell you why nor what is likely to happen).

any more questions, akx** me


links:

http://superherohype.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-162884.html
google

** new futurama form of <ask>

 

[Sedge]

wow, thanks for your detailed answer!

and I guess your version /ti:n/ (/i:/ long i) was created by germans who tried to apply the rules of pronounciation correctly (but failed ^^).

that's not the case in the movie.
in the english (american) version, as well in the german version the name is pronouncd [tiin].

a quite good movie, by the way...
"this is constantine. jhon constantine, asshole!"

 

[agentP]

The name of the well known roman emperor Constantine I. is also pronounced "-teen" (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=constantine) in English. So this pronounciation does not seem to be typically "briton" or "german".

 

[Tortenhuber]

well, latin teachers tend to disagree on the pronounciation of latin and moreover latin pronounced different in each language.

as for the comic adaptation constantine, the pronounciation originally was /tain/ and was changed to /ti:n/ while producing the movie (according to the comic fans in one of the links I've posted earlier).


@ AgentP:

imho the <tine> in <constantine> should be pronounced like /tain/, as you said and I guess your version /ti:n/ (/i:/ long i) was created by germans who tried to apply the rules of pronounciation correctly (but failed ^^)

that was my opinion before doing appropriate research

 

[Eskapismus]

a joke you often hear here in Russia (it kind of fits here i guess):

"American universities - That's where Russian professors teach Chinese students"



American students are more likely to find in Key West and in Cancun than in a university

 

[Tortenhuber]

that one was great!