English Titbits [antikvár]

Dear Reader, Life is a serious business, isn't it? And so is learning-learning a language in particular. The latter can sometimes even be rather dull. It greatly depends on the reading you have to or want to swallow and to digest. So why not brighten the whole thing up a bit, why not try it the amusing, the funny way? This is why I have thumbed through many pounds of English newspapers and magazines as well as books by the yard to find the right kind of snippets and match them with quotations, thus preparing for you a choice of ENGLISH TITBITS which, I hope, will be to your taste. Of course, you needn't remind me of the fact that tastes differ widely. I'm well aware of that. And a few of the titbits might be spiced a little too hot for the one or the other. This is why I have sought an appropriate heading for the chapter which is not for those who don't like it hot. The other chapters - or courses - can easily be digested by anyone, even the frailest. On this I'll stake my hitherto unblemished reputation. I have even let my two little boys (the younger of them still a baby) and my 92-year-old grandmother (still going strong) have a taste and they thoroughly enjoyed it. So why shouldn't you? The book has many contributors - a host of unnamed journalists and cartoonists but alsó a magnificent gallery of great and not-so-great figures of our times as well as of bygone ages. Whom should I thank? I owe my thanks to all of them. All of them proved to be íirst-class caterers who have enabled me to serve up this menu. Maybe I'm making too much of the whole thing. Agatha Christie (introduction) and Albert Jay Nock (final observation) at least don't. Believe them or not. But believe me, what I have done has been with the best of intentions. So - help yourself - to ENGLISH TITBITS! Manfréd Rudolph Leipzig, July 1966