A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

only a third of the work, for there is a variety of new

distortions of the adjective to be learned when the object

is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter.

Now there are more adjectives in this language than there

are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as

elaborately declined as the examples above suggested.

Difficult?–troublesome?–these words cannot describe it.

I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of

his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks

than one German adjective.

The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure

in complicating it in every way he could think of.

For instance, if one is casually referring to a house,

HAUS, or a horse, PFERD, or a dog, HUND, he spells these

words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to them

in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary

E and spells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added

E often signifies the plural, as the S does with us,

the new student is likely to go on for a month making

twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake;

and on the other hand, many a new student who could ill

afford loss, has bought and paid for two dogs and only

got one of them, because he ignorantly bought that dog

in the Dative singular when he really supposed he was

talking plural–which left the law on the seller’s side,

of course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore

a suit for recovery could not lie.

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter.

Now that is a good idea; and a good idea, in this language,

is necessarily conspicuous from its lonesomeness. I consider

this capitalizing of nouns a good idea, because by reason

of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the minute

you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you

mistake the name of a person for the name of a thing,

and waste a good deal of time trying to dig a meaning

out of it. German names almost always do mean something,

and this helps to deceive the student. I translated

a passage one day, which said that “the infuriated tigress

broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest”

(Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt this,

I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a

man’s name.

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system

in the distribution; so the gender of each must be

learned separately and by heart. There is no other way.

To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book.

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.

Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip,

and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it

looks in print–I translate this from a conversation

in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:

“Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

“Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.

“Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English

maiden?

Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.”

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds

are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless,

dogs are male, cats are female–tomcats included, of course;

a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet,

and body are of the male sex, and his head is male

or neuter according to the word selected to signify it,

and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears

it–for in Germany all the women either male heads or

sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast,

hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair,

ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience

haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language

probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in

Germany a man may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look

into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts;