> In reply to my plea, Mark Koechig promptly said: > > ] Guy- > ] The word you are looking for can be found in Chapter 23 of _|A|| |Connecticu t > ] Yankee in King Arthur's Court._ It is: > ] Mekkamuselmannenmassenmenchenmoerdermohrenmuttermarmormonumentenmacher > ] > Mekka muselmannen massen menchen moerder mohren mutter marmor monumenten mache r > Mecca muslims mass humans murder Moor mother marble monuments maker (s > It's hard to say what's modifying (or trying to modify) what. > > It COULD be a gang of marble-monument makers from Mecca who > 1. are muslims and > 2. are mass murderers of Moorish mothers. > > Or, it COULD be a gang of Moorish mothers who > 1. are marble-monument makers and > 2. are muslims who are also > 3. mass murderers > > Or.... I'll ask a native speaker and see if HE can postulate a > hierarchy of modifiers... > > --Thanks again, > Guy Haas > It's a little late to reply now, but being a native German speaker, I should say that the word is complete nonsense. There might be a hierarchy detectable up to -moerder- (the 's' is missing in 'menchen', by the way), and so far it might mean a mass murderer of muslims from Mecca, but then the words becomes completely nonsensical. 'mohren' could also be a vernacular form for 'moehren' or 'mohrrueben' or karotten', all meaning 'carrots', but the 'mutter'-bit doesn't make sense. If it belongs to 'marmormonumentmacher', and not 'monumenten' (!), it should read mamormuettermonumentenmacher', but this doesn't help, does it? Well, I think Twain just put together a few German words for the onomatopoetic effect of it and relied on the fact that probably nobody would care to try to make sense of them anyway. And that's all I can contribute to the problem. Best regards, Markus