OT: LIF O languages (was Re: "Theory informs practice" - OK?)

* Yahya Abdal-Aziz said on 2008-11-20 17:37:36 +0100
> On Sun, 16 Nov 2008, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > Nobody ever *speaks* sentences like:
> >
> > Wer denjenigen, der den Wegweiser, der an der Brücke, die über
> > den Bach, der von Ahausen nach Bettelheim fließt, führt, steht,
> > umgeworfen hat, anzeigt, erhält 500 Mark Belohnung.
>
> In English, approximately:
>     Whosoever reports whomever has upset the signpost, which
>     stands at the bridge, which leads over the brook which flows
>     from Ahausen to Bettelheim, [shall] receive a reward of 500 DM.
>
> And it _exactly_ the kind of thing my peers me, their professors
> in Germany when lectures giving, do would, told - only very much
> tamer, is.  Indeed, the best "performances" by these Old Masters
> of the stacked verb, their audiences on the edges of their seats,
> in awful suspense for upwards of *half an hour* whilst for the final
> cascade of verbs, which finally of the many hundreds of words
> that them preceded, sense make would, waiting, riveted, sitting,
> have would.  That, not a bad feat for a university lecturer, whose
> students else, just for the opportunity at the end of the lecture to
> leave, waiting, to doze off be likely would, is!  The relief of that last
> word hearing and all the pieces together slotting, just imagine ...
Bravo! Made my day :)


t.