www.derdiewas.de - Die Website zum Buch von David Bergmann

"Der, die, was?" auf Englisch:
"The, the, what?"

Chapter 1: Lovelier at Second Sight

For one special week, I was “hasenclever” (bunny cunning). I had learned a new German word. One day, almost a year after my move from Chicago to Germany, I saw a street in Hamburg called “Hasencleverstraße”. The word “bienenfleißig” (busy as a bee) was already one of my favorite words, but I found “hasenclever” to be even snazzier, kind of along the lines of the German expression “dufte Biene” (a hot chick; literally “a sweet smelling bee”). During the next few days, I enthusiastically used my new word as often as possible. Everything that I deemed to be more than just clever I now described as being “hasenclever”. The reactions of the natives varied considerably: Some didn’t seem to notice anything unusual whereas others merely smiled, slightly puzzled, and nodded. Only one German woman admitted somewhat sceptically, “Hm. Personally, I’ve never known bunnies to be all that clever”. But I didn’t let that confuse me: When it came to the German language, I now felt like I finally belonged to what the Germans refer to as the “intellektuellen Tieren“ (the wise old owls; literally “intellectual animals”).

At the time I shared an apartment with a Swiss fellow named Bodo who was pursuing a doctorate at the University of Hamburg. His dissertation dealt with a medieval manuscript written in Latin. Unlike me, he never seemed to be at wits end with that language, or any dead one for that matter. Fortunately for me, he was also interested in living languages, including the German which I was trying so eagerly to learn. In our circle of friends, he was aptly referred to as the “Sprachpfleger” (language chaperon). One weekend, Bodo did something which impressed me considerably. As a result, I naturally exclaimed, “Hey Bodo, that was clever! That was even ‘HASEN-clever!’” Bodo looked at me for a long while, rather pensively. Then he stated, „David, man kann entweder klug, geschickt, raffiniert, gerissen, schlau, gewieft, listig, gewitzt, durchtrieben, pfiffig oder sogar clever sein – aber Hasenclever war ein Schriftsteller.“ (“David, in German you can be intelligent, skillful, refined, crafty, shrewd, cunning, sly, wily, scheming, smart, or even clever - but “Hasenclever” was an author.”)

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