At home in the Swiss cubism

these are the last days before Christmas, around me, packages are everywhere. The things something mean to me, not to feel, but absolutely as gifts. When I moved in 2014, in a small apartment in Höngg, it took an hour to get everything I owned, was up. Now, me in ten hours a company picks up and I sort of still court judgments, Art books, and PR campaigns.

whenever I need a break, walk I through Zurich on almost every corner an encounter or a story. Many of the concrete around the hard bridge of my German friends affectionately called "Swiss cubism", I grew nearly as fond of as the steamed bun, which are my favorite Asians. To take advantage of the unlimited access to these rolls, over I go in the the Moment day by day. The waiter looks at me, in the meantime, something odd – order but I don't have a long time ago.

It will take a time until I found in Leipzig, a club in which it takes only a brief Nod to get the right thing to eat on the menu. Well, Yes.

"initiator! What! ! Because! The?"

The first Time I've felt on a misty Thursday morning, right at home, sometime in the fall of 2015. I had a planning editor of the "süddeutsche Zeitung" on the phone, usually quite factual and, above all, well-employed man. But this Time, he called me just to make jokes. A word in my Text caused him so much joy, that he held the whole Newsdesk sometimes. "Initiators" blared through the phone. "Founders! What! ! Because! The?"

I was honestly confused. It was the System referendum, which was prepared by the colleagues so much joy? I explained that it was the group that had started the vote, only to collect signatures, posters glued. At the other end of the line, but the joy was still greater. At some point it dawned on me: The word "initiator" sound in Munich is hilarious.

The high German word "initiators" I had to forget the time for a long time, it seemed to me somehow wrong.

South Pacific state of Switzerland

misunderstandings there were. It is the editors fell hard to understand why I did not want to write "Zurich" prices, or what part of Switzerland I meant, when I reported a Problem of Agglomeration. The Differences in grammar (for example, that the Swiss do without most of the time on constructions with "that") I devoted even a whole Interview. A language researcher, the regional common grammar explained "", it sounded a bit as if you were speaking with an ethnologist about the fascinating customs of a remote South Pacific state.

Some Swiss words, however, are so beautiful, funny, or just alive, that they themselves were on the topic. About the "horns" of the ships on the lake of Zurich, in the summer of 2016, a little old lady to go for a swim. The article I wrote at the time about this and other "First World problem", always came back to talk to this Verb – he brought me also some of the best reader letters from Switzerland. But more on that another Time.

Other words were more of a private pleasure. That something "runs resinous", I would have written, preferably on a daily basis, that some people need to once again "on the books" as well. My editors didn't think it was quite as funny as the initiator, was it but surprisingly often.

Laborious and very tedious

What got reliably good: the careful type, with the Swiss their Displeasure expressions. "When I say, Mr Müller was a bit tedious, then that means that I can work together a day longer with him," I tried to explain.

A Munich colleague asked what it would apply to the mean, as "very tedious", he heard the same thing about a Swiss politician. I thought for a moment: "That is probably the Same, what would it be called high German. He is unbearable, you have given up trying to change him." My colleague didn't think it was funny, but understandable and even a bit elegant.

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Created: 09.01.2019, 09:31 PM