A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering

Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him

up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear

him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises

again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square

responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of

having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him

in Spots.

———–

There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun

business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue.

I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look

and sound between words which have no similarity in meaning

are a fruitful source of perplexity to the foreigner.

It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in

the German. Now there is that troublesome word VERMA”HLT:

to me it has so close a resemblance–either real or

fancied–to three or four other words, that I never know

whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married;

until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means

the latter. There are lots of such words and they are

a great torment. To increase the difficulty there are

words which SEEM to resemble each other, and yet do not;

but they make just as much trouble as if they did.

For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let,

to lease, to hire); and the word VERHEIRATHEN (another way

of saying to marry). I heard of an Englishman who knocked

at a man’s door in Heidelberg and proposed, in the best

German he could command, to “verheirathen” that house.

Then there are some words which mean one thing when you

emphasize the first syllable, but mean something very

different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable.

For instance, there is a word which means a runaway,

or the act of glancing through a book, according to the

placing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies

to ASSOCIATE with a man, or to AVOID him, according to

where you put the emphasis–and you can generally depend

on putting it in the wrong place and getting into trouble.

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language.

SCHLAG, for example; and ZUG. There are three-quarters

of a column of SCHLAGS in the dictonary, and a column

and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow, Stroke,

Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind,

Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure,

Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT

meaning–that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning;

but there are ways by which you can set it free,

so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning,

and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please

to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to.

You can begin with SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery,

and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word,

clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER, which means

bilge-water–and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which means

mother-in-law.

Just the same with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull,

Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction,

Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line,

Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move,

Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation,

Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT mean–when

all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been

discovered yet.

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG.

Armed just with these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot

the foreigner on German soil accomplish? The German word

ALSO is the equivalent of the English phrase “You know,”

and does not mean anything at all–in TALK, though it

sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his

mouth an ALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites

one in two that was trying to GET out.

Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words,

is master of the situation. Let him talk right along,

fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth,

and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a SCHLAG into