No, I didn’t write this accurate German — a very helpful Austrian reader did. Thanks to him – another SuperGeek – I look smarter than I am. You cannot keep all the stuff in your head you need to know as an author. Well, I can’t, anyway.
I love German puns. Their language is so very flexible, yet so tight. Martin Luther’s standardization lets them play with it without having it fall apart or wander off on them.
You notice Winzig isn’t a damn’ bit afraid of these people.
A German girl came up to my table at a Vancouver show, pointed out Miki on the cover of this book and said, “This Is My Mother.”
Not the name or the character — just what she had to go through. Which is one of the greatest reviews I ever got. And all I was doing was trying to imagine what it would have been like for me if I’d had to survive the end of a war.
It means “Monkey Fat.” My mom used to call us that when (rarely) she was being affectionate.
I had to learn German before I realized where she’d got it; it means “Ape (goose, cooking) grease.” Kind of like the “Washee” (“The lard we put in stew.”) in Thunderheart, to mean “good boy.”
What’s with telling a child “Oh, you’re so chubby and cute I could just eat you right up!”?
This is like that scene in the movie musical South Pacific where the pilot flies low over an island just to see if there are any Japanese in place. “Yeah, it’s occupied,” he says, ignoring the bullets and terrorizing his passenger as he pulls up.
The Peach was in World War One. He’s from that generation of officers — on both sides — where smooth, mannerly calm was demanded of the upper ranks, no matter what the situation.
Recently heard a new military phrase: “Embrace the suck.” It’s an odd combination of military bluntness and new-age serenity.
In World War Two, it was “Ya gotta be a philosopher.” In the Vietnam era, it was “There it is,” with the reply, “Check it out,” both from the hippie culture. Then again, that was a drug culture, and it WAS the army in Vietnam.
The army also used “Dude!” and “Foul, DUDE!,” to express disgust or disagreement. That’s getting into the surfing slang.
I wonder if they still use SNAFU?
