The only way out is up (Discursive Aside page 22)
Being projectiled out of volcanoes as allegory for learning West Germanic languages
So I mentioned I can´t perceive umlauts. So “closeby” is “in der Nähe” instead of “in die Nahe”. But not so fast! It can be “in der Nähe” but it can also be “in die Nähe” depending on the situation. Clearer than that? It´s all Greek to me.
Another word I learned (this morning) that I´ve always been pronouncing wrong is Pisces, as in the astrological sign, the fishes. (Now the plural of fish is just fish, except when it´s fishes, under certain circumstances. You know, I´m beginning to get why English and German are related… one infernal, diabolical, confounded family that ought to be swimming with the fishes on the bottom of the Mariana Trench in der Nähe of the center of the earth. You know that novel by Jules Verne? A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, about the arduous, futile, dangerous journey led by one Professor Otto Lidenbrock from Hamburg, Germany… to the centre of the earth. Little known fact: it was pure allegory for the arduous, futile, and dangerous journey to learn West Germanic languages, with a very clear moral at the end: despite all your effort, you will be ejected from volcanos… so draw your own conclusions which journey you want to take, if you are anti-lava and projectile.)
I´m not bitter; I´m just burnt by molten rocks, and my heart (linguistically) has cooled and formed into an igneous mass.
Now I´ve always pronounced Pisces pye-sees. And yes this is almost the universal English pronounciation. But watching the seven-minute How to Fish Disney short from 1942 about Goofy learning to fish with my kids this morning, the narrator pronounced Pisces piss-kus. And I was delighted. This makes sense. Now I don´t know Latin, but it stands to reason that Latin pisces would be pronounced piss-kus. Are you not charmed as well? (Or are you already at the centre of the earth and the volcano is loading to blow?)
Yours, in hardship, on this journey, to the West,
Fei
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