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Thank you, Dominic, for revealing more of the mysteries of your striking composition. I was not aware of the fact that "Lightning-war" was the familiar translation of "Blitzkrieg". (After all "Opel Blitz" was turned into "Bedford Blitz" and not into "Bedford Lightning"!) As for archaic words: I am not against their use, and members of my family sometimes ask me about words I use which they are not familiar with. And as for dictionaries: they must contain all words that occur in texts - whether still part of the spoken language or not. Here is what I wrote about this topic some time ago: the dead words where shall we bury them the words that have died under our hands where shall we put them? come, let us write them down on a sheet of paper. where shall we put them the sheets with the words that have died which lie on our desk? where shall we keep them? come, let us collect them in a card-file. where shall we store them the card-files full of sheets with words that have died? where is room for them in our house? come, let us make a dictionary of them. where shall we put them the volumes with the lists of words that have died in our house? is there room enough? come, let us build a library for them. what is the best place for the library in memory of the words of the past in our town? where shall we build it? come, let us build it near to the cemetery. but who will visit the library with the books of the words that have died? who will read in them? who cares for them still? come, I'll show it to you: it is - the dead. the dead will come out of their graves and visit the words of the past and will rise to life and live again with those words. come, let us listen: the dead - speaking! ----- Original Message ----- From: domfox <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 11:30 PM Subject: Re: I am noble! Hear me squeak! > Transfigured. /Not/. > > Makes sense in a Wayne's World kind of way, anyway. > > I didn't even know that Aufklarung could mean reconnaissance, although I'm > very glad it can. Languages are great like that, especially ones you don't > know terribly well. In fact the intention was to bring off a trans-lingual > pun - > Blitzkrieg, which everyone's heard of, gives birth to Aufklarungkrieg: > Lightning-war to enlightenment-war. The metaphorical chain runs from there > to the Geistesblitz - brainwave, not spirit of the blitz - I imagine > Bush/Blair experiencing, thence to Alabama and the electric chair, and then > to the lightening (air-)strikes that leave "flesh scorched to earth" > elsewhere in the world. > > Any time I come out with any German at all, some modern German speaker says > it sounds archaic to them. But then my archaic German dictionary has > "Kolonialwaren" for "groceries". > > Dominic