A Tramp Abroad

What Hacker News says

1. hilbert42Dec 2022
   I've often thought the only saving grace for those learning goddamn English as a second language is that they are spared all this gendered nouns nonsense (that is except for a few special cases).

   Gendered nouns, both in French and German, have always been a problem for me. German came later but I recall at school that the beginning of each chapter of my French textbook had a list of nouns each preceded by its article and learning them was a pain. After school I'd sit on my bed bashing my head against the pages of the textbook whilst trying to learn these damn genders, they made no logical sense to me and rules for remembering them had so many exceptions that they were essentially useless. I hated learning them.

   German was a whisker easier in that I was in German-speaking Austria when I was learning it so I was exposed to the nouns' usage on a daily basis. For me, the real gotchas in German were its damn declensions!

   In my opinion, the only effective way to learn these genders is to be smothered in the language on a daily basis—this way, somehow, one learns them by a form of osmosis.

   As already mentioned elsewhere, Appendix D - The Awful German Language in Mark Twain's The Tramp Abroad is a quintessential summing up of the difficulties a native English speaker has in learning German. It's a brilliant summary, not only is it hilariously funny but also he gives some excellent examples from different aspects of the language such as separable verbs, gendered and compound nouns and those damn German adjectives.

   It's a while since I've read it so I can't remember chapter and verse but I'd thoroughly recommend anyone interested in the matter of German genered nouns read his bit on the 'sex' of fishwives and young girls. Appendix D also has some unforgettable comments on the length of German compound words—something to the effect that 'they stretch across the page like mountain ranges' and are long enough 'to have perspective.'

   It's a must-read.

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2. zhdc1Mar 2021
   Great recommendation. I somehow managed to go from the House of Intellect to Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad to James Baldwin's Stranger in the Village over the last couple of hours.
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3. bsderJul 2026
   Definitely Twain and it's not even close. Huckleberry Finn even has the episodic flavor of The Odyssey.

   For books you have "The Innocents Abroad", "Roughing It", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "A Tramp Abroad", "The Prince and the Pauper", "Life on the Mississippi", "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court".

   That's a hell of a lineup and includes a LOT of the flavor of the US as a young country.

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4. pavlovDec 2018
   I know. Like when Mark Twain visited Germany in 1878 and then used his report ("A Tramp Abroad") to talk about his own feelings rather than objectively describing the fascinating arts and crafts of Prussia.
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5. dalkeFeb 2016
   That's an ahistorical list of traits, starting with "Scared of Automation" / "the incoming trend of automation", because it could be applied almost without change to any American generation in the last 150 years.

   To start, consider "the incoming trend of automation". Phil Ochs in the 1960s wrote "Automation Song", concerning workers who lost their jobs due to automation. The chorus is:

      Oh, the wages were low and the hours were long
      And the labor was all I could bear.
      Now they've got new machines for to take my place
      And you tell me it's not mine to share.
   

   Yes, the specific details are different now than they were 5, 10, 50, or 100 years ago, but the principles are the same now as it was for the Baby Boomers or for John Henry.

   "Whether millennials are actually interested in it or not, our lives are completely engulfed in technology"

   The Baby Boomers were also 'completely engulfed in technology'. It was the Jet Age, the time of plastics, and new inventions in TV, home construction, frozen food and synthetic fabrics.

   Their parents grew up surrounded by electricity, indoor plumbing, automobiles, radio, etc, with food from farms tilled by tractors and fertilized with synthetic fertilizers.

   "TRAITS: not scared of technological developments, are early adopters, quick to see the use of a new product"

   Traits which could equally be applied to the youngest generation since the 1800s.

   "gamers 4 life"

   Pong. Video arcades. "Pac-Man Fever" was a hit song in 1982. The video game crash of 1983. The Game & Watch games. Tetris. Generation X hasn't stopped gaming either.

   "TRAITS: used to competition"

   Other popular forms of gaming competition include bowling, pinball, billiards, pickup games of soccer/football, etc., golf, tennis, and bridge.

   "red bull slurpers"

   Well, yes, this is more a Millennial brand. Before then there was Jolt Cola, Mt. Dew, NoDoz, and other branded ways to get a caffeine fix.

   "okay with on-demand energy boosts, no problem with chaotic information and schedules, love fast-paced projects"

   Of course, the generation before the 1970s could get amphetamine for an even more potent stimulant. That may have been useful in the hectic high-paced modern era of the 1960s, what with the information explosion in every field and the excitement of fast-paced "Moon shot" projects.

   Then there's all the fast-paced projects during WWII. Many of the physicists out of the Manhattan project talk about how exhilarating it was - a feeling echoed in the other projects of the time.

   "social network addicts"

   Yes, the newest ways of social networking are much more powerful than the old ones.

   "walking personal brands"

   Hasn't personal branding and perception been a thing in popular culture since at least "How To Make Friends and Influence People"? The Zoot Suit Riots are an example from the 1940s of what happens when personal branding collides with the rest of the culture.

   "Millennials have this thing called #wanderlust"

   As compared to all Baby Boomers who wanted to go "On the Road" and "look for America", or join the Peace Corp and help in Africa, or travel the hippie trail from Europe to India?

   Or the interwar expat Americas like Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway?

   Or the popular travel writings of Mark Twain ("The Innocents Abroad", "A Tramp Abroad", "Following the Equator")?

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6. timxppJul 2011
   Not to forget: Instant(!!!) green card for anyone earning more than 65000 Euros/year.

   The only issue I still have is the "awful German language" ;-)

   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

   (Mark Twain's 1880 book A Tramp Abroad.)

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