Am 10.01.19 um 17:33 schrieb Bob Martin:
Back in those same seventies, I was working for an army lab (Harry
Diamond Labs) as a summer student. I saw a picture in a lab supply
catalog of a (ein) stein of beer. I tore it out and taped it over a
picture off Albert Einstein that a German physicist, Howard Brandt,
had on the wall over his desk. This was a bad idea. Howard was so
incensed that he called the whole department together, hauled out the
Websters Unabridged Dictionary, and forced me to read the definition
of the word philistine in front of the group. Fortunately, there were
many entries under the word and I chose "a native of Philistia" to
read out loud. The moral is words can have many meanings and, more
importantly, don't make fun of Einstein
around German Physicists.
I wonder if Howard even understood the intended pun.
Stein means stone, nothing else. I have seen/heard it used in the
sense of a "mug for beer" only by Americans. The closest
German word would be Steinkrug, but only if you want to
emphasize that the Krug is made of ceramics and not of glass.
Decimation apart of the Roman sense for me is only throwing away samples,
and the need for filtering goes with it even without explicitly saying.
Cheers, Gerhard
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