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  • adj., in the artificial and overly formal style of foreign-language phrase books. From the name of Heinrich Gottfried Ollendorff (1803-1865), a German grammarian and educator.

    Famous examples of such language include: "Unhand me Sir, for my husband, who is an Australian, awaits without." Perhaps the most absurd phrasebook is English as She is Spoke: The new guide of the conversation in Portugeuse and English in two parts (1855), by Pedro Caroline and Hose de Fonseca, which includes this nearly incomprehensible sentence in its introduction: "We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the expectation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly."

    July 9, 2008

  • Heehee!

    July 10, 2008