Naught But Stars

A summary of the most common points that come up.

Most Germans do not consider toast bread (i.e. wonderbread) bread.* It is a product you finish baking at home. I have eaten it untoasted many times** in front of them, and a significant number of people*** react in horror.

"Ungetoastetes Toastbrot" is a popular phrase that sounds as insane in German as it does in English to all who hear it, but the reason it sounds insane depends on if the German in question believes it is ethical and proper to consume it untoasted. Alternatively, there is the even more strange but not that uncommon "rohes Toastbrot" — raw toast bread. Which isn't the same as dough.**** Truly die-hard toasters will refer to the bread itself as "Toast" in all forms, as if that will manifest it as the only possible destiny for every slice in existence.

Toast bread is only unilaterally fit for consumption after it has been sufficiently toasted. There are discussions about what shade of toastage makes it "genießbar", but the general consensus is that it's toast the second it gets a crunchy crust through the application of heat. This might be achieved in a toaster, but using it to make a grilled sandwich in a pan, toastie maker or a contact grill is equally acceptable. Just letting it go stale does not count. The application of cheese, mayo or butter to the outside does not influence the becoming-toast process in either direction. The cooling down of the toast does not reverse the status change; not even if the toast is exposed to circumstances that revert it to its previous softness, or even make it soggy*****.

One more or less acceptable exception to toast bread needing to be toasted is when one orders 1) currywurst 2) without fries from a 3) street vendor who does not 4) stock white bread rolls and 5) does not advertise the currywurst as coming with a roll. Any deviation from those 5 points negates the toastbread clemency and is a legitimate reason for grumbling******. The toast bread also has to be of a generic brand, white and cut on the diagonal. One triangular half is an acceptable serving, but two marks a more generous******* vendor.

"sandwich bread" and it's ilk are what I ate for my entire life and arguably the South African (and presumably American) sandwich breads have evolved to be better untoasted, being larger and softer, but literally within a month of moving to Europe I switched to grocery store sourdough as my default bread and basically won't eat Toustový Chléb unless it's toasted.

An interesting game where you are presented with 10 artifacts from the MET. You have to place where the artifact is from and what time period it is from. Each artifact scores up to 10,000 points, and you lose points the further away your guess is and how far off in time you are. You can only play once a day. Thanks to @baebeylik for showing this to me.

Today I scored really well. Yesterday ... not so much.

here are all the pronouns, from Peter Baker's incredibly useful magic sheet.

out of all the aspects of grammar, pronouns are probably one of the easier things to explain to a modern english speaker because pronouns are basically the only things modern english still declines for case and gender.

so ic/me/min are used the same as I/me/my. you do need to think about case in places where you might not be used to; þu corresponds to þe in the same way that I corresponds to me, not like modern you, which doesn't have a different accusative/dative form.

dual doesn't show up all that often, but it is exactly what it sounds like; it refers to exactly two people.

you can probably get away with not thinking about case all that much for first and second person by relying on what modern english does, but third person is a little more complicated

there are three genders: masculine, neuter, and feminine. neuter is the ancestor of modern it and similarly would be strange to be use for a person (but i mean have fun with it). but the animate/inanimate distinction is not as strict as it is in modern english; he/heo are used for grammatically masculine and feminine inanimate things as well as people. gender doesn't matter for plural pronouns though.

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