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If has frequently been claimed that the language of comics is “bad” language. This paper tests the hypothesis whether the language used in comics is therefore particularly easy to understand. To this end, a 4,900-word corpus of English-language comics, comic strips and cartoons was compiled, and a readability score based on word and sentence length was calculated. While the data on word frequency first seems inconclusive, the combined results suggest that the language of comics is indeed relatively easy to understand, and that reading comics can therefore be particularly recommended to language learners.

Der Sammelband vereint verschiedene Beiträge zu Grammatikalisierungsphänomenen und ist das Resultat einer studentischen Tagung am Institut für Germanistik der Universität Leipzig. Behandelt werden neben allgemeineren Tendenzen des Sprachwandels u.a. Wechselwirkungen von Metonymie und Metapher oder spezifische Eigenheiten bei Grammatikalisierungsprozessen von Modalverben.

In the end of the nineteenth century, the difficulties in resolving the puzzle of the source of the Gothic month name jiuleis and its cognates led Tille to suggest searching for a solution outside the sphere of the Germanic languages. In this article I argue that the ultimate source of the Gothic word and its cognates is the Biblical term jubilee. I also argue that the word is a nomen sacrum (a sacred name) and, as such, an abbreviation.

Toward the end of World War I the name of the post office station "Germantown" at Germantown, Glenn County, California, was changed to "Artois" which eventually resulted in the name change of the village itself to Artois. This paper compares current present-day accounts of the incidents leading to the post office name change with the actual course of events as they could be reconstructed from contemporary 1918 newspaper reports. It continues to trace the change as it shifted to the name of the township itself and concludes with a second look at the present-day accounts of the past historical events. / Gegen Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges wurde in Germantown, Glenn County, Kalifornien, die Poststation "Germantown" in "Artois" umbenannt, welches dann zu der Namensänderung des Dorfes selbst führte. Die folgende Untersuchung vergleicht Berichte über die Umbenennung des Postamtes, wie sie heute in Glenn County gängig sind, mit Berichterstattungen damaliger Regionalzeitungen. Die Erörterungen verfolgen weiter, wie der Namenswechsel auf die Gemeinde Germantown übergriff, und kehren abschließend zu den gegenwärtigen historischen Berichten zurück.

In their primary use names are inherently defi nite, but they also have various secondary uses where this inherent defi niteness is lost. One such use is to identify an individual or place having relevant properties of the bearer of another name (e.g. We make Singapore Boston of the East or Paul Grootboom is the Tarantino of the townships). The examples make sense only if we know the source referents (Boston and Tarantino) and then establish a metaphorical relationship with the target referents (Singapore and Paul Grootboom). Thus, names are used as an economical way of referring to the transferred properties which are associated with the name bearer. Metaphors in general are selective and highlight particular aspects of the source and target referents while hiding others. Based on a survey including examples from multiple sources and informants with diff erent backgrounds, I want to explore some of the issues that metaphorically used names raise. In particular, I show that a cultural dimension is refl ected a) in the use of local or non-local source referents and b) in the knowledge about the source referent that is evoked in a given discourse context.

In Thuringia and Hesse, considerable documentary evidence of the field name Eisfeld can be found. Localities so designated mostly lie close to settlements and bodies of water; they are usually less appropriate for agriculture. Their location and use, as well as phonetic reasons, suggest a compound with OHG âʒ ‘food, cattle feed’. Probably the original appellative noun OHG âʒifeld mostly designated pasture ground in the vicinity of settlements. Because some of these localities lay within settlements as early as in the Middle Ages, names of the Eisfeld type seem to be quite ancient. Documentary evidence from Bavaria, Austria and Switzerland shows that these terms also occur in Upper German, and there are indications of the same in Dutch.

The Nienburg fragment, named after Nienburg Monastery from where it originated around 1180, starts with a problematic list of several place names as Lighinici, Zrale, Crocovva, Cotibus, that have been implicitly connected so far to Kraków (Poland), to Liegnitz / Legnica as well as to Strehlen / Strzelin in Silesia, and to Cott bus in Lower Lusatia. The authors follow the historian Rudolf Lehmann in his assumption that these places were former stops along the way thus linking Zrale to Strehla on the River Elbe, Crocovva to the desolate Krakau at Königsbrück on the River Pulsnitz. Lighinici, which hasn’t been located yet, can be placed with the help of linguistic research to the desolate place Leichen (Lichen) near Dürrenberg on the River Saale (Sachsen-Anhalt). The number of place-names that include ‚Kirche’ (church) and ‚Markt’ (market) seems like a kind of travel-guide leading from the monastery at Nienburg to its holdings in Lower Lusatia.

Handbooks often insist on the popularity of male and female names from the Old Testament after the Reformation. Studies on name-giving practice in Westfalia by Michael Simon, in the Upper Palatinate by Rudolf KleinÖder and in the small town of Maulbronn in the Southwest of Germany by Horst Naumann and Konstantin Huber do not confi rm this assumption, neither does our own analysis of the names contained in the inscriptions of three graveyards in Nuremberg dating from 1581 to 1608 sustain this opinion. It is worth mentioning that Nuremberg adopted the Reformation in 1525. Our material clearly shows that the Reformation did not bring immediately a new way of personal naming and that Old Testament names were neither numerous nor very frequent.