Günter Grass RIP

[subcontrabass]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32285705

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/13/gunter-grass-german-nobel-laureate-dies-aged-87

[french frank]

Just seen it and was about to post. It takes a death to bring it home that this is a significant figure whose work one knows shamingly little about.

[gurnemanz]

Most important post-war German author (along with Heinrich Böll). Funny, incisive and highly original. My favourite is probably "Der Butt" (The Flounder).

(I wish the BBC would learn to pronounce his surname correctly - "Grass" does not sound like the stuff on your lawn but rhymes with "mass".)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Most important post-war German author (along with Heinrich Böll). Funny, incisive and highly original.

- years since I read any (well, decades, really); as frenchie says, a pity it takes his death to remind me how I have neglected his work.

(I wish the BBC would learn to pronounce his surname correctly - "Grass" does not sound like the stuff on your lawn but rhymes with "mass".)

Errm - the stuff on my lawn has always rhymed with "mass".

[Pulcinella]

But which mass, fhg?
Good hard Northern a mass or the RC Sean Rafferty mah(r)ss variety?
(Sorry: no good at using the phonetics like jean gives us!)

[gurnemanz]

:

Errm - the stuff on my lawn has always rhymed with "mass".

Sorry about dodgy pronunciation guide with Home Counties bias. Would "farce" work?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry about dodgy pronunciation guide with Home Counties bias. Would "farce" work?

: biggrin:

Pulcie - does Rafferty really pronounce it "Maahse"?

What an ass!

[Pulcinella]

:ela; : biggrin:

Pulcie - does Rafferty really pronounce it "Maahse"?

What an ass!

Indeed I have heard him do just that.
Love your description of him!

[vinteuil]

:

Pulcie - does Rafferty really pronounce it "Maahse"?

!

... most of the Cartholics I know pronounce it "Marse". As do I

[french frank]

... most of the Cartholics I know pronounce it "Marse". As do I

Not quite sure why they don't spell and pronounce it 'mess'.

[gamba]

What I have in my garden is pronounced ' moss '.

[P. G. Tipps]

... most of the Cartholics I know pronounce it "Marse". As do I

Well that maybe true of the descendants of the pampered upper-class lot who cowered in their castles and managed to survive the Reformation in the comfy, leafy shires of Southern Ingerland.

In certain rather less agricultural parts of the West of Scotland, ever-devout Papists attending Holy Mass are generally heard referring to it in a curiously Methodistical-sounding and thoroughly ecumenical manner as 'gaun tae chapel'

[richardfinegold]

He denied being in the SS for years and finally fessed up recently. It wouldn't be a big deal if he wasn't so quick to criticize Western Democracies in the 60.

[jean]

Well that maybe true of the descendants of the pampered upper-class lot who cowered in their castles and managed to survive the Reformation in the comfy, leafy shires of Southern Ingerland...

...or anywhere where a recusant community wants to distance itself from the Irish immigrants (SR seems to have changed sides).

As for chapel, you hear that in Ireland too, as the Church of Ireland forbids anyone else to have churches.

[Honoured Guest]

He denied being in the SS for years and finally fessed up recently. It wouldn't be a big deal if he wasn't so quick to criticize Western Democracies in the 60.

Sometimes, awareness of personal weakness is a spur to greater public action.