English on the other hand does offer a certain economy of words. In 1987 my Army Reserve unit took part in a major exercise in North Germany involving participants from Germany, the Netherlands, England, Belgium and the US. It was the biggest movement of soldiers from the US to Germany since 1944.
Early in the planning process we were working closely with the German Army in setting in place controls to minimize damage to roads and farms. One of meeting took place at Fort Hood in Central Texas. At that time the Texas Highway Department had an anti-litter campaign "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS." There were signs and bumper stickers all over the state with this message. We talked with the German Army representatives about doing some thing similar for all US vehicles taking part in the exercise, both in English and German. We had to scrap the idea because while "DON'T MESS WITH GERMANY" would work in English, we were told the best German phrase would be something like, "YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE WRONG THING TO GERMANY." Too much to fit on a bumber sticker. _______________________________________________ Horn mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/listinfo/horn
