Just last week Mr. Verb wrote about "Willkommen in Der Rathskeller," mentioning that it is perhaps seen as an invariant phrase. Right on, Mr. Verb! So invariant that it's perfectly OK to give the invariant phrase an article (in English; it doesn't matter if you don't know what
Der means). The Badger Herald, one of the student newspapers at the UW, has an article on the band We the Living today. The caption under the picture:
We the Living returns to the city of Madison Friday for a concert at the Der Rathskeller.
Very odd indeed.
Wow, almost like "the La Brea Tar Pits".
ReplyDeleteThanks, this does confirm what I thought.
ReplyDeleteBut shouldn't the University of Wisconsin – Madison student papers have people reading copy who know a tad of German?
Well, if you're not going to say "im Rathskeller" you might as well treat the name as a fixed phrase. It's not as annoying as "Morton's The Steakhouse", if you ask me. (I know some people try to fix that one by adding a comma, but their own signs are proudly comma-free.)
ReplyDeleteToday's soup du jour is . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd like that with the au jus sauce, please.
ReplyDelete