Amish people do tons of hilarious things.  I knew that.  But I had never heard them speak Pennsylvania Germanbefore.  Some Old Order Amish speak this language, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a German dialect that has been heavily influenced by American English.  I could understand bits and pieces of it.  But it just sounded so funky that I had to smile.  I also had to smile because I knew that I was talking to an Amish person.  I have nothing against the Amish at all.  But, it’s not like an Amish person is going to read this blog, and if he does, he’s got some explaining to do.

The German title “Kaiser,” meaning emperor, along with the Russian Czar, derives from the Latin Emperors’ title of Caesar, from Gaius Julius Caesar.  As for Caesar, I found this little tidbit kind of funny:  In elementary school-style attempts to humiliate and degrade Caesar, his political opponents publicly questioned his sexuality, often claiming he had a homosexual affair with Nicodemes IV of Bithynia.  Sometimes he was even referred to as the Queen of Bithynia.  That’s hilarious for so many reasons.  First, it’s hilarious to hear people slinging mud at arguably one of history’s most influential leaders  Second, it’s funny how nothing ever changes. Politicians will always have homosexual affairs.

Today I learned that every noun is capitalized in the German language. German spelling reforms even occurred in 1996 that made the capitalization system more consistent; it ensured that every noun was capitalized, even nouns in expressions (to ride a Bike).  Unlike English, the first-person-singular pronoun (‘I’ in English) is lower case (ich), unless it starts a sentence.  Thanks to this, I can really get a good grasp of the German language.  Oh wait.  No I can’t.  But at least I can tell you which words are nouns in the sentence.  That way I can piece together the sentence and figure out its meaning.  Oh wait.  No I can’t.  Every sentence has a noun.  Crap.  Well I can tell you that the German word for capitalization is Großschreibung.  What!?  I just grasped the capitalization thing, now they are throwing that weird giant letter B thing in on me.  Apparently, that stupid letter is called an Eszett and is used in place of a double s.  Whoever invented that letter is an aßhole.