12.16.2005

Separate them!

I was at the Christkindlmarket at the Daley Plaza downtown and saw a booth that was advertising "Glassornaments" from Germany. Note how it's one word. Germans like to string numerous adjectives and nouns together (unlike us English speakers, who know how to keep words separate) so that one word can take up an entire line in a newspaper. So I guess they thought that "glass ornaments" should be a compound word as well.

Well, folks, study your English! We're not as compound-happy as you are!

4 comments:

Mad Minerva said...

Ah, well. I'e seen a certain sweet advertised under "candycanes." Stop the madness! Separate your words! *grin*

Soon we'll have "Rudolphtherednosedreindeer," one word.

Anonymous said...

Not if us (we) separated speakers keep control.

Michael said...

Not to quibble unduly with details, but it should be spelled "Christkindlmarkt". Now, please try to pronounce "Bundesverfassungsschutzgrundlagenerneuerungsgesetz",

which is one word.

Frohe Weihnachten,

:-), Stalin the Shark

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I know it's spelled "markt", but if you click on the word, you'll see that's how Da City spells it, so I thought I'd be true to their spelling.