MONDAY, JANUARY 26th.

The 259th day of CPT Patti's deployment.

Today's posts are brought to you by the Rapid German Study Foundation, saving you time by steering you away from phrases you don't need to learn in German.

Today's tip. Back in the 70s we got the yellow smiley face (once upon a time it had nothing to do with Wal-Mart)

At about the same time for better or worse we Americans also got into this habit of wishing everyong to "Have a nice day!".

You might be tempted to seek out such a phrase in German. Don't.

The phrase doesn't suit the German culture at all. You want to have a nice day...fine...that's your business. But no German is going to urge you in that direction.

There is one exception to this. We have German guards at the gates to our Army installations here in Germany. They speak a tiny, tiny bit of English.

These guards will say "Have a nice day" once they have checked two forms of identification required for your admittance.

However, we have it on good authority they have been told this phrase actually means "Your papers are in order" in English.