"Happy Valentine's Day!" cried Mr. P, running into our room, about as excited as Christmas. "I think I know what today is about," he confided, head resting on the edge of the bed as I pried my eyes open and tried to look interested. Mmhmm? "It's about Jesus and God and Love," he declared, then realized he had missed something, "...and Cupid."
The rest of the day kind of dissolved, in more of a hydrochloric acid way than a Sweet Tart way, and the photo there of one of Shmoogie's valentines was insisting on coming up sideways and I just kept thinking of the German phrase "schief gegangen", which usually translates to "gone awry" but the word schief has many meanings, the most plain of which is "crooked" or maybe "off kilter". The sideways Valentine photo started to take on poetic meaning. But then when I went to load it, it was magically right side up. Oy.
Every time I read phrases like this, I think I'd like to learn German. Its such a fun language. There are words in English that mean all kinds of different things like scheif does in German, but I can't think of them at the moment. "Get" might be one. It's got many different uses. But my favorite word here is gegangen. And I'm not even sure why. I think German is so close to English that we kind of understand the words without really knowing......or they instinctively make sense once you're told the meaning. And.......maybe there's a lot of onomatopoeia in German??
Posted by: mar mar | 15 February 2013 at 05:44 PM
I'm wondering about mischief being a derivative of schief since the meanings are slightly akin.
Posted by: Rita | 19 February 2013 at 11:08 AM