Three things I learnt in Hamburg
1) Dogs can play football.
2) When a gorgeous blonde is telling a joke involving a gorgeous woman, she will describe her as "gorgeous woman, long, dark hair..." Anyone else would simply say "a gorgeous blonde". Interesting.
3) When non-English speakers sing English songs, they learn each line as a single word. I observed this both at Angie's nightclub, and in conversation with an Italian man, second language German, who was trying to learn to play and sing rock classics. He asked us to help him with the pronunciation; we said it, he repeated it, he wrote it down. ("Mama tek dis begg off mi," was his exact notation.) Fortunately, he wasn't much interested in having the lyrics interpreted. Explaining A Whiter Shade of Pale would be a bit beyond me in any language.
2 comments:
My dad lived in Hamburg! It's probably not that exciting to you, since you probably meet more Germans than I do. However, he did and he loved it.
So welcome back. I hope you are recovering from the food-fest.
If you ever figure out Whiter Shade of Pale, please explain. That man's translation actually made more sense to me than the original lyrics.
Could it possibly be because a woman might still see another woman as a person, even if she is blonde in a joke? Dogs and football: Some dogs have significantly higher IQs than prominent footballers, so it's not surprising they can grasp the offside rule :)
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