Among my many prejudices, most of which are rather absurd, there is one I feel funny about: my loathing of the German language. This has nothing to do with my feelings toward Germans as a people. In fact, I never tire of lauding them for their courage in dealing with their collective conscience. No other European nation has been as thorough in airing their closets. Neither is German culture at stake, of course. Perhaps half of people I respect in the arts, for instance, are from Germany. The loathing of the German language is about language as such. That is, about the way it sounds. To put it subtly, I find it an insult to my ears. A word like Ladenschlussgesetz, or “shop-closing law,” is enough to get me riled up. Italian is my favorite language, if that needs to be added. Still, I am not proud of my prejudice. On occasion I feel a bit guilty about it, too, and I am prepared to atone for it. To wit, I have decided to do my best to learn German. One day I may even speak it. As the first step in this direction, today I bought a German dictionary. And a very big one! So, I have come clean. Now I wonder what the Germans are prepared to do about their horrendous language—just kidding!

Addendum (April 3, 2016)

I cracked a smile when I came across this piece in one of my uncharted journeys through my writings. To my joy, I stopped loathing the German language many years ago. A bit more than a year after this piece was written, I undertook to learn German so as to acquire an appreciation of the language (“Appreciation,” November 26, 2004). Paul Müller was my one and only teacher between 2004 and 2007, when he died (“Deutsch 119,” August 21, 2007). And my appreciation came forth just in time (“In sich gehen,” January 30, 2007). In fact, Paul was a wonderful teacher, and I enjoyed listening to his German. To my chagrin, though, I failed to continue learning the language on my own after his death. In retrospect, I needed a few more years with a teacher like Paul before I could do that. Alas, there were none in Motovun or its surroundings at the time!