German Word-of-the-Day for Owlet: Day 10

der Rucksack /'rʊkzak/ "backpack"

I'm sure this is a word you know already, but I'm introducing it mainly so I can talk about the parts. First, though, be sure you don't say it like the British do. The first element has a "short u" sound as in rook, not the central vowel of truck, which isn't found in German at all. (When German speakers have to pronounce it, they generally substitute [a]. I still remember trying to get my friend Andreas to say "fucking shit!" correctly instead of like facking schitt!.)

For starters, you have der Sack, a useful enough word on its own or combinations like der Dudelsack "bagpipe", der Dottersack "yolk sac", or mit Sack und Pack "with the whole kit and kaboodle". Then there are the more, er, affective uses like Drecksack! "Scumbag!", Du fauler Sack! "You lazy bastard!", and Heiliger Strohsack! "Holy Cow!" (Lit., "Holy strawbag!")

But the first part is even more useful--at least, its derived forms are. In reality, der Ruck is a "jerk", but I've always thought Rucksack was derived from der Rücken "back", since "jerksack" doesn't make a great deal of sense to me; I put down the lack of umlaut to the perversity of German compounding.

Be that as it may, Rück- shows up all over the place. One of the first German words I ever learned, believe it or not, was der Rückversicherungsvertrag, which was the name for a secret treaty Bismarck signed with the Russians in 1887. (Lit., "back-insurance-treaty"; in modern parlance, die Rückversicherung is "reinsurance".) "Backwards" is rückwärts, but if you were describing a country, you'd call it rückständig. Der Rückstand, btw, is a state you sometimes find yourself in--particularly with these lessons--though more often it's where the people who pay you are.

When you're going back where you've been before, you're going zurück. Zurück
vom Ring! are the last words to Wagner's magnum opus, shouted by Hagen as he sees die Rheintöchter encroaching on what is rightfully his. But they spirit away the magic gold and our poor little man is zurückgelassen.

i iz dum (part 398)

My poor Meyer lemon, which I bought for last Chinese New Year, has been struggling ever since. I'd had it only a few weeks before I forgot to water it once or twice, causing the blossoms to wither and the green fruits to fall. I redoubled my efforts and it staged a spectacular recovery only to be thwarted again by my forgetfulness; a third attempt was not in the cards.

I fretted. I asked my father for advice, but he didn't have much to say about citrus. monshu thought it might be suffering by being too close to the cold glass, even though it was sitting atop the radiator. By the beginning of the year, it was looking so sad that I considered pruning down the bare branches.

But before I could get around to that (there was a lot I was planning to do at the beginning of the year that I never got around to), it returned from the dead: Branches which hadn't held leaves in months were suddenly budding all over. By about three weeks ago, flower buds appeared. I told monshu that perhaps it was a seasonal effect: The light was telling it that spring was back.

You can bet I've been fanatically about caring for it. I've been checking the soil almost every day and drenching it the moment it dries out to the one-inch mark. The first blossom opened yesterday and I've been by to sniff it at least three times--really a remarkable fragrance for a life-long temperate zoner like myself.

As I was watering yesterday, something occurred to me: For the first few months, not only was I more attentive about watering, but I was also reliably fertilising. Then I got lazy; when the second batch of MiracleGrow ran out, I didn't mix up more. Not until a month ago, that is. A month ago...hmm...just about the time I noticed a remarkable recovery?

That's why I am dumb.