to the
book--is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of
the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to
the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I
begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I
say to myself, "REGEN (rain) is masculine--or maybe it is feminine--or
possibly neuter--it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it
is either DER (the) Regen, or DIE (the) Regen, or DAS (the) Regen,
according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the
interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is
masculine. Very well--then THE rain is DER Regen, if it is simply in
the quiescent state of being MENTIONED, without enlargement or
discussion--Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind
of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is
DOING SOMETHING--that is, RESTING (which is one of the German grammar's
ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative
case, and makes it DEM Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is
doing something ACTIVELY,--it is falling--to interfere with the bird,
likely--and this indicates MOVEMENT, which has the effect of sliding it
into the Accusative case and changing DEM Regen into DEN Regen."
Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer
up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the
blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) DEN Regen." Then the teacher lets
me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops
into a sentence, it ALWAYS throws that subject into the GENITIVE case,
regardless of consequences--and therefore this bird stayed in the
blacksmith shop "wegen DES Regens."

N.B.--I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was
an "exception" which permits one to say "wegen DEN Regen" in certain
peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not
extended to anything BUT rain.

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average
sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity;
it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of
speech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound
words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in
any dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without joint
or seam--that is, without hyp