From 4 February 1966 to November 2005, ARD television showed Der 7. Sinn, The Seventh Sense, a short program on road safety. At first, each episode lasted two to five minutes. It showed drivers making mistakes, and then showed the correct way. The narrator was Egon Hoegen. Its guiding question was this. Wie verhält sich Mann oder Frau richtig – unfallfrei – im Verkehr? How does a man or a woman behave correctly, without accidents, in traffic?
Words for a Workaround
Bastellösung
A tinkerer’s solution. It works, more or less. It is rarely meant as praise.
Behelfslösung, Notlösung
A makeshift solution, an emergency solution.
Provisorium
A temporary arrangement. Nichts hält länger als ein Provisorium. Nothing lasts longer than a provisional arrangement.
frickeln
To fiddle about with a small technical thing in order to fix or improve it.
Trick 17
Trick number 17. A clever move or device that solves a problem in a surprising way. The dictionary DWDS gives no origin for the number.
durch die Hintertür
Through the back door. Said of something introduced without the proper way.
The Fountain Pen License
In many German primary schools, children first write with a pencil. Before they may move to a fountain pen, they must show that they can handle it. Those who pass receive a Füllerführerschein, a fountain pen license. Teaching material for the exercise says the children can prove that they have practiced using the pen. The custom varies from school to school.
Knigge Was Not About Table Manners
In German, ein Knigge is a book of rules of conduct for a particular field. Duden’s example is ein Knigge für Handelsvertreter, a Knigge for sales representatives. The word comes from Adolph Freiherr von Knigge, who published Über den Umgang mit Menschen, On Dealing with People, in 1788. His book was less a guide to etiquette than a study of how people deal with one another. It did not explain how to use a knife and fork. The rules were added by later editions, one after another.
Writing by Ear
Lesen durch Schreiben, reading through writing, is a method for teaching children to read and write. Children write words as they hear them, and corrections come later. It goes back to the Swiss educator Jürgen Reichen. In 2018, a study by the University of Bonn found that children taught with the classic primer, the Fibel, spelled clearly better. The study set off a national argument. The head of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, said: Kinder wurden damit zu Versuchskaninchen einer übereifrigen Reformpolitik gemacht. Children were made the guinea pigs of an overzealous reform policy. Meidinger called for a nationwide ban. Baden-Württemberg’s education minister, Susanne Eisenmann, had already banned the method in her state.
Back to the Craft
In April 1919, Walter Gropius published the program of the new Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar as a leaflet. It called artists back to the craft. Architekten, Bildhauer, Maler, wir alle müssen zum Handwerk zurück! Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all return to the craft! Der Künstler ist eine Steigerung des Handwerkers. The artist is a heightened form of the craftsman. The basis of craftsmanship, Gropius wrote, was essential for every artist. The school organized its students as in a guild, in apprentices, journeymen and junior masters.