th those great long compounded words; or
require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for
refreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are
more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when
they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter
and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not
hang a string of those useless "haven sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden
seins" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a
speech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and
should be discarded.

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the
re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise
the final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis. I would require
every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward
tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of
this law should be punishable with death.

And eighthly, and last, I would retain ZUG and SCHLAG, with their
pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify
the language.

I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important
changes. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing;
but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my
proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the
government in the work of reforming the language.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to
learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French
in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then,
that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is
to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among
the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION IN THE GERMAN TONGUE, DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OF
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK

Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this
vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless
piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country
where they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set
to work, and learned the German langu