I wouldn't call it mean at all, you just extended my english word pool by one word. May I call you teacher? [grin1]
Originally Posted by: GermanGilbert
Actually it was part of what I was thinking. To give you a new word that you can forget tomorrow.
When I was in high school my teacher had us call him "der Lehrer". Not that I remembered it. I had to use google translate to make sure. Being 15 year old boys, we easily got side tracked into other words and other issues. The conversation came to a quick end when someone asked what the word "FĂĽhrer" meant. This was in 1972. He got pretty upset. I don't recall the kid having any ill intention, just trying to learn. The teacher said that the German people typically use the terms "Spitzenreiter" or "Oberhaupt" which made us laugh. He was not in a mood to kid around that day so we had to get back to the books. The teacher was American born so it was always confusing to me me why he would act so harshly. After thinking about it over the years I concluded he still had family living in Germany. I wish I would have had the courage to ask him. My college German instructor defected from East Germany. He would not speak about it no matter how hard we pressed him. Once toward the end of the semester he gave a brief description of his and his wife's flight. I would have loved to sit and talk to him about that for hours.
You would probably have recognized his looks or at least how he dressed if you saw him. He wore a tweed jacket with a sweater underneath it every single day. It didn’t matter how warm and humid it was that was the proper way to dress. He was not very large. I don’t think he was more than 5 foot five inches (168 cm) and about 140 pounds (65 kg) but he stood straight and made sure everything he did was proper.
I guess I got a little side tracked.