“Das tut mir leid” is about the only bit of German I know. It is from the Sarcastic Grandmother dialect of German, and it means, “Oh, poor pouty baby, sucks to be you.”
I was a pouty baby today when I got my copy of David Sedaris’ Calypso from Amazon. “CALYPSO,” it said on the dustjacket, “vom autor des weltbestsellers NAKED.”
“Nooooo,” I whispered. Nein!
I turned to a random page.
“Tiffany … Cool. Stoned. Hacke. Durchgeknallt.”
(Tiffany … Cool, Stoned, Hoe, Girl Interrupted.) [sic]
It is all in German. I should have been alerted when I looked at the price, but I didn’t look at the price, or the faint, tiny German text on the image of the cover.
I’m a little verärgert.
2 responses to “Das Tut Mir Leid Calypso”
Oh, nooooo. I would not have thought of that happening on Amazon (I have almost bought not-in-English used books online before, however. But fortunately on the used-book sites, the summary/whatever info for those books is 1. prominent and 2. not in English.
(is that German phrase roughly equivalent to “the world’s tiniest violin” or is there a gap in meaning?)
(and thank you for the entertainment. 🙂 )
KC – Well,that’s how my GrandCeil meant it. I’m sure many people say “I’m sorry” with all sincerity. And as it turns out, even though the vendor’s name ended with UK, it only had to travel as far as the next state when I returned it.