[German] Two phrases, one of them "ironic".
Christoph Maier
cm.hardware.software.elsewhere at gmail.com
Tue Oct 26 05:29:07 UTC 2010
On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 04:58 +0000, Jason Dusek wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 03:30, Christie Dudley <longobord at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So for the rest of us who don't know what it means, want to fill us in?
>
> I'm sorry; you have a good point.
>
> Als guter Freund sollte ich keine schlechten Gewohnheiten
> unterstuetzen.
>
> As a good friend, I should lend no bad habits support.
>
> Als guter Freund sollte ich deine schlechten Gewohnheiten
> nicht unterstuetzen.
>
> As a good friend, I should not lend your bad habits support.
>
> (I have inserted "lend" and nominalized "support" to
> preserve the word order.)
>
> Some Germans I spoke to today remarked about the "double
> negative" in the latter rendering -- "schlechten" and "nicht"
> together -- though I'm still not sure what they felt was
> noteworthy about it.
Depends on context ... but I could imagine saying this while giving a
good friend some sort of addictive substance, like booze, weed, or a
paper about abstract category theory.
Christoph
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