--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> At 7:07:36 PM on Thursday, July 10, 2008,
> david_russell_watson wrote:
>
> > In English there is the expression "There's something
> > rotten in the state of Denmark".
>
> > Would anybody happen to know what the history or
> > explanation of this odd expression is?
>
> It's spoken by Marcellus in Act I, Scene 4 of 'Hamlet'.
David knows that very well. He tells us that by paraphrasing Hamlet's
monologue later in the posting.
I ran into people in the USA who after some time felt uneasy about
this person they had racially classified as a Scandinavian/German(?)
(in England it was Northerner, in Germany Hamburger/Holsteiner) who
didn't behave appropriately to his ethnic group in their country and
began to emanate signals for me to kowtow as appropriate in their
culture. Unfortunately for me, the Danes have never been occupied and
subjugated properly, so I never got the clue. In USA, eg. they'd then
have a problem in reminding me of my status as member of an underling
group, since they had no clue about anything Danish to remind me of.
So they'd go: 'Erh, emh, Hamlet!, Erh, emh, cheese factory!!'. Great
entertainment for me of course.
Sorry to sound all whiney and Kishorey. I felt someone (eg Brian?)
might not have gotten the background otherwise.
Torsten