Friday 14 January 2011

Medal for German Grammarian

Now we all know that grammarians deserve praise and recognition, but it's not often they get a medal, is it? Or maybe it is, maybe there's some kind of special grammarian's league that awards its own honours in gold and silver once every three years. What do I know?

Anyway, German being a language with very prescriptive grammar and very strict spelling rules, passed by parliament and all that, it makes sense for a German grammarian to get a medal from the president. And Christian Stang has done just that. Or had just that done to him. Or will have just that done to him in the near future, as the trade press reports. Herr Stang is actually younger than me and works for the German post office. Which means he is that very cool thing, a grammarian in his free time. He published his first book (on punctuation) at the age of 19 and it seems he's never looked back.

I'm trying not to be overly envious. I'm consoling myself with the fact that once you've been awarded a medal by the president for your services to German grammar, spelling and punctuation at the age of 35, it's all downhill from there on. Or from then on.

2 comments:

isabo said...

"Regensburger Rechtschreibpapst", my goodness, I never heard of the guy. But then again, I'm not that much into language things.

Daniel said...

His little Duden pamphlet "Kommasetzung" (a mere 48 pages), really helped me with my writing in German, as I was having a great deal of problems getting my commas correctly placed. Nice to see him getting rewarded.