Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[GwenOnBass]

We read Julius Caesar in secondary school. We also read The Iliad and The Odyssey in secondary school. Latin classes were discontinued the year I was old enough to take a language class.

Our German teacher was mad. Everyone knew he hurt a kid a couple years ago but hey still teaching. Go figure. There's the girl who sits in the front row whose family speaks German at home. This is an easy grade for her. I learned very little German in that class. What I learned was how to deal with an absolute loon. That's a life skill right there.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Perhaps sir might benefit from some prunes...




That's a heck of a scene to quote whilst courting!

But hey, if it worked...


May I heartily recommend the Folger Shakespeare Library series! Thoroughly researched and updated from original texts, with helpful notes that appear on the facing pages throughout all of their publications. For example:

View attachment 4403134

Very reasonably priced in trade paperback size, available at major booksellers or online, direct from the Folger library:

Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger SHAKESPEARE

so bookmarked

 

[GwenOnBass]

Funny in this recollection over coffee I recall just how many teachers I had with anger issues. My graduate school advisor told our class up front I have an explosive temper, and all of you will be in the line of fire.

And this editor I worked for more than once ... he is kind of pear-shaped and his high voice gets higher the angrier he gets. It wasn't me he was angry with that one day when
when he was so angry he left the building (without his wallet) to walk it off. And was picked up and taken in custody by the local constabulary because he matched a description for a missing Alzheimer's patient

it's like an old pattern ... to see flying telephones at work and write it off as completely normal

 

[mikeoso]

We read Julius Caesar in secondary school. We also read The Iliad and The Odyssey in secondary school. Latin classes were discontinued the year I was old enough to take a language class.

Our German teacher was mad. Everyone knew he hurt a kid a couple years ago but hey still teaching. Go figure. There's the girl who sits in the front row whose family speaks German at home. This is an easy grade for her. I learned very little German in that class. What I learned was how to deal with an absolute loon. That's a life skill right there.

We studied Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Maccers, and Hamlet.

 

[beans-on-toast]

Perhaps sir might benefit from some prunes...




That's a heck of a scene to quote whilst courting!

But hey, if it worked...


May I heartily recommend the Folger Shakespeare Library series! Thoroughly researched and updated from original texts, with helpful notes that appear on the facing pages throughout all of their publications. For example:

View attachment 4403134

Very reasonably priced in trade paperback size, available at major booksellers or online, direct from the Folger library:

Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger SHAKESPEARE

It should come with Folger’s coffee to keep you awake when reading.

I wonder if Shakespeare had a pseudonym for other work. Perhaps for chicklit novels. Shakespeare’s father was a leatherworker, he made gloves. I wonder if he did the binding or covered any of his kids books.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Chapbooks sold in the millions. Literacy was on the rise in the West.

 

[beans-on-toast]

We read Julius Caesar in secondary school. We also read The Iliad and The Odyssey in secondary school. Latin classes were discontinued the year I was old enough to take a language class.

Our German teacher was mad. Everyone knew he hurt a kid a couple years ago but hey still teaching. Go figure. There's the girl who sits in the front row whose family speaks German at home. This is an easy grade for her. I learned very little German in that class. What I learned was how to deal with an absolute loon. That's a life skill right there.

I had a german teacher, she taught us how to speak french with a german accent.

It used to be that to get into university, they wanted you to have latin. Why, I don’t know, it wasn’t divinity school. Just a reason to keep some people out I suppose. At one point, they dropped that requirement in favor of math and physics for science students. Not having one of the requirements out of high school, I had to go to summer night school to take a course in linear algebra. Why for science, I don’t know. Latin logic I suppose. Later for engineering school they said that I needed an extra physics course because I studied science. Again, Latin logic.

 

[Al Kraft]

German was the preferred language skill for those of us applying to to engineering schools in the 70's. It wasn't until I had my first job that I realized how much material from German scientists was foundational to the 60's and 70's "modern technology" we enjoyed in America. I'm not sure there is was a deliberate connection there, but the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming.

 

[G-Dog]

I had a german teacher, she taught us how to speak french with a german accent.

It used to be that to get into university, they wanted you to have latin. Why, I don’t know, it wasn’t divinity school. Just a reason to keep some people out I suppose. At one point, they dropped that requirement in favor of math and physics for science students. Not having one of the requirements out of high school, I had to go to summer night school to take a course in linear algebra. Why for science, I don’t know. Latin logic I suppose. Later for engineering school they said that I needed an extra physics course because I studied health science. Again, Latin logic.

In junior high school I was told I should take German to go with my planned math & science curriculum. But, my foreign language "requirement" kept getting pushed back in hopes of the German class that never actually formed. Oh, we were also "going metric" at any moment, back then.

My engineering college was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, that I had taken NO foreign language class! I simply HAD to take their German class, but (oops!) that professor abruptly resigned for another position. We also used a hodge-podge of Imperial and metric measures. (Anyone ever hear of kips, or kilo-pounds? ) But, I somehow managed to get my engineering degree with no foreign language classes.

Early in my engineering career I saw a few German language documents in the department library, but never personally needed them. I then discovered our main facility had a small, old German-built processing unit reassembled on-site after WWII, complete with swastikas forged into the metric-sized piping! In the '80s it was replaced. I never heard mention of needing a foreign language, or using the metric system, again. And any "foreign" metric measures received always had to be converted to Imperial units straight through to my '13 retirement! (sigh)

But, even to today, I do try to pick up some words and phrases, and recall some metric/Imperial conversions, on each visit to another country. Mrs. Dog sometimes seems to think I'm her personal translator! Perhaps metric is my real "foreign" language?
.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Goethe was what I had in mind with German. He's the German Shakespeare.

 

[LBS-bass]

Our German teacher was mad. Everyone knew he hurt a kid a couple years ago but hey still teaching.

Oh, man. Y'all don't want to know about the stuff that went on at my high school. Let's just say it was bad enough that a major paper did a huge write up on it about 40+ years after the fact and it wasn't just one teacher, but definitely one who was involved remained on the faculty throughout almost that entire period. Several others have long since passed away. Nobody's getting taken down for it.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Goethe wrote Faust, and that's just an early version of Robert Johnson's Crossroads. In Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus, a composer sells his soul and invents twelve-tone. The composer's descent into syphilitic madness (no stewed prunes mentioned) is mirrored in the events of post-Great War Germany. Not really light reading.

Current editions of Mann's The Magic Mountain translate the Walpurgisnacht chapter from French to English

 

[mikeoso]

Took two years of HS math, two of foreign languages, two of science. In college, I took none of the above, either as an undergrad or a grad student. Also took no comp or stat or lit courses in college. In fact, the list of what I didn't study makes me wonder sometimes if they just gave me a degree so I'd go away. Of course, it WAS the early 70s in the US, and they were pretty happy if they just kept us from burning the admin building.

 

[GonePlaid]

Took two years of HS math, two of foreign languages, two of science. In college, I took none of the above, either as an undergrad or a grad student. Also took no comp or stat or lit courses in college. In fact, the list of what I didn't study makes me wonder sometimes if they just gave me a degree so I'd go away. Of course, it WAS the early 70s in the US, and they were pretty happy if they just kept us from burning the admin building.

There is that.

 

[GwenOnBass]

No recollection of any abusive teachers at boarding school. My classmates, on the other hand ... um. So I asked to go ... getting out of the house now is an imperative for a teenaged me. Read Goethe auf Deutsch there.

The me who resides in this present moment bought a present for the cat bass — a 2.75 inch blue nubuck strap



The buckskin nubuck strap is what I originally bought for the bass. Both are beautiful pieces of leather.

 

[GwenOnBass]

The only efforts of cross-communication at university between the humanities departments and the science departments that I recall were intersections at the lemonade stand. More than one resulted in marriage

 

[G-Dog]

Goethe wrote Faust, and that's just an early version of Robert Johnson's Crossroads. In Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus, a composer sells his soul and invents twelve-tone. The composer's descent into syphilitic madness (no stewed prunes mentioned) is mirrored in the events of post-Great War Germany. Not really light reading.

Current editions of Mann's The Magic Mountain translate the Walpurgisnacht chapter from French to English

[G.Toody] Ooo! Ooo! [/G.Toody] That reminds me!

My math & science curriculum somehow knocked choir, my favorite elementary class, out of junior high & high school. Good thing I had my extracurricular garage rock bands to fall back on at that time.

In college I took a few semesters of "Grand Choir" as electives, including one entire semester of several Liebeslieder selections! They were performed in "phonetic German" while keeping the English translation in mind so we knew the proper emotional intention. Our director, the Dean of Music (and Orson Wells "no wine before its time" lookalike), when coaching us on certain passages, could switch instantaneously from coloratura soprano to basso profondo voices, and everything in between! Quite impressive.

As a non-music major I felt invisible. I took advantage of it and tried singing different parts, from time to time. I usually aspired to a tenor part, unless the director pointed to my general area and requested "more baritone (or bass) here". I still catch myself singing some phrases from those days in my head, from time to time, for no apparent reason. "Old timer's", much?
.

 

[GonePlaid]

[G.Toody] Ooo! Ooo! [/G.Toody] That reminds me!

My math & science curriculum somehow knocked choir, my favorite elementary class, out of junior high & high school. Good thing I had my extracurricular garage rock bands to fall back on at that time.

In college I took a few semesters of "Grand Choir" as electives, including one entire semester of several Liebeslieder selections! They were performed in "phonetic German" while keeping the English translation in mind so we knew the proper emotional intention. Our director, the Dean of Music (and Orson Wells "no wine before its time" lookalike), when coaching us on certain passages, could switch instantaneously from coloratura soprano to basso profondo voices, and everything in between! Quite impressive.

As a non-music major I felt invisible. I took advantage of it and tried singing different parts, from time to time. I usually aspired to a tenor part, unless the director pointed to my general area and requested "more baritone (or bass) here". I still catch myself singing some phrases from those days in my head, from time to time, for no apparent reason. "Old timer's", much?
.

I sang in the church choirs(junior then senior)for ~9 years, during which time I was also taking piano lessons and playing clarinet, bass clarinet, and sax in h.s., thusly being able to read the music. I'd pick a part and sing it whether I was s'posed to or not. Choir director was never quite sure where it came from. (Or maybe liked that someone covered the part.) Choirs seem to always have a "star" soprano who, at least, thinks she's "all that"-but really isn't.

 

[GwenOnBass]

There are stereotypes for dumb tenors, and diva sopranos ... And from what I've seen, they're fairly accurate, same as generalizations of trumpet players, or the drum section

 

[Winslow]

The most memorable German teacher I had was not a teacher of German per se, but of geometry and algebra. People seemed to dread being assigned to his classes, fearing how strict he was rumored to be with both grading and classroom discipline, but I never had a problem with him. Then again, my in-class habits did not have much in common with my (alleged) peers, so maybe I just didn't present a target for his ire.

High school Shakespeare I have covered elsewhere, but for the sake of convenience, I will excerpt from, and expand upon, myself: One of our Lit teachers mandated that the class memorize Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." speech from Julius Caesar. We were to be graded on our memorization, which made for a rather weird scene, as we all had to go up to her desk one by one, and - so as not to provide undue assistance to any slacking classmates - essentially whisper the speech to her. It struck me as so bizarre that a speech written to be performed as public oratory was reduced to that kind of barely-audible delivery.

Not that I minded too much, anyway. The teacher was a young woman, and quite attractive. Twist my arm and make me go whisper Shakespeare in her ear for five minutes.

I don't recall my grade, but neither do I recall any critique or admonition. Just a pair of big, brown, doe eyes looking into mine as I quietly implored her to lend me your...

...ears.

(Damn it, Will.)

Meanwhile, so far as I have been able to determine in searches of this forum, I seem to be the only TB'er to have replied to posts with sonnets. Not once, but twice (the second, accompanied by smileys).

...or the drum section

Careful, now...

There are exceptions here and there.