DIN 2330: concepts and designations general principles Poem by Ulf Stolterfoht

berlin: hotbed of the best. a healthy word (like bran)
back to basics for the true believers. strip the language
to its roots. good. friday: working on vocabulary.
enter the body of language with a heartbeat.

saturday: stock up on signs. a pantry of
concepts. sunday: special lexicon. border terms.
apparently names. in the evenings language theory takes
a sabbatical. for the good of the community you explain ‘shoo stick'.

then goodbye. // vienna. alone at the guesthouse
‘mercy option'. with problems about standards. fear
of failure. come on words: explode! where is
glossolalia when you need her, the glossary

must be produced. only half-hearted agreement on
the best mnemonic. // düsseldorf in autumn.
the coolest squads for linguistic emergency. pep
talkers sound spielers. can justify surveillance:

for the first time voice prints will be taken, the
rules seem watertight, yet braille will rescue
the words. so efficiently sublime: the normmakers
should not feel all was in vain.

translated by Joanne Burns