None Of My Concern

Sometimes, I get irritated at the way Americans butcher German words. You'd think they'd do a better job pronouncing words that come from a language that forms about half of their own. The worst, of course, is that "Jahn" comes out every which way except "yon".

But I got to thinking about a guy I worked with years ago who had been station at Ramstein AB, near Kaiserslautern. He kept talking about something he referred to as the "concern". For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Just as I was about to give up, the light went on. He was referring to the "Kaserne" (kah-SAIR-neh; meaning "barracks").

Sheesh....