I give my History of the English Language students this hilarious essay by
Twain. That and his review of James Fenimore Cooper's _The Last of the
Mohicans_ are two of the funniest things by him I've ever read.
Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: An introduction
> Mark J. Reed scripsit:
>
> > Good luck! I'll refrain from quoting any of Mark Twain's damning
> > commentary on the subject. :)
>
> We can all read it for ourselves at
>
http://www.mastertexts.com/Twain_Mark/A_Tramp_Abroad/Chapter001003.htm
> and many other excellent sites.
>
> "In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good
> idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from
> its lonesomeness."
>
> --
> John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan
> "The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of
his own
> skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and
among
> other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague." --Edsger Dijkstra
>