Reinhold Aman
Encyclopedia
Reinhold Aman is a former chemical engineer
and professor of German
, and the publisher of Maledicta
, a scholarly journal dedicated entirely to the study of offensive language.
near Passau
, Bavaria
. Prior to working as a translator and clerk for the U.S. Army in Frankfurt
, he studied chemical engineering in Augsburg
and later worked as a chemical analyst and petroleum chemist in Frankfurt, Munich
and Montreal
. He moved to Milwaukee
in 1959, and worked there as a metallurgist and analytical chemist.
Aman received his baccalaureate from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1965, and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas in 1968. (His dissertation was entitled "Der Kampf in Wolframs Parzival
".) During his college years he taught the German
, French
, Spanish
, and English
languages at various local high school
s, mostly on a part-time basis. In his last year at Texas, he also served as a teaching assistant
and teaching associate
.
From 1968-1974, Aman was an assistant professor of German at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (which he now dismisses as "Dungheap U"), where he taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in German grammar
, stylistics
, conversation
, phonetics
, philology
, medieval
and Baroque
literature, dialectology
, bibliography
, and research methods.
Apart from Maledicta, Aman has published Bayrisch-Österreichisches Schimpfwörterbuch http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/boes.html (ISBN 3-86520-095-8), shorter monographs, as well as various books, including Hillary Clinton's Pen Pal http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/penpal_contents.html (ISBN 0-916500-14-4), a guide to the slang and mores of American prisons, directed to Hillary Clinton. At the time of writing, Mrs. Clinton was experiencing legal difficulties, and Dr. Aman claimed he wanted to turn his recent term in Federal prison (see below) to use by helping her understand the subculture, customs and specialized argot
, so that she could avoid potentially-lethal faux pas.
for mailing, after a bitter divorce, two threatening postcards to his ex-wife and the allegedly threatening 2-page pamphlet "Legal Slimebags of Wisconsin" to many Wisconsin lawyers and judges. The postcards in question had pasted-up headlines of news articles about bitter ex-husbands killing their ex-wives. Because of a judicial error and his "good behavior" in prison, he actually served 15-1/2 months at Santa Rita, Terminal Island
, Lompoc
, and Dublin
(now a Federal prison for women only), and was released in February 1995.
newsgroups as one inclined to participate in flame wars.
.
Chemical engineer
In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is the profession in which one works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products, and deals with the design and operation of plants and equipment to perform such work...
and professor of German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and the publisher of Maledicta
Maledicta
Maledicta, The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, is an academic journal dedicated to the study of offensive and negatively-valued words and expressions. Its main areas of interest are the origin, etymology, meaning, use, and influence of vulgar, obscene, aggressive, abusive, and...
, a scholarly journal dedicated entirely to the study of offensive language.
Career
Aman was born in FürstenzellFürstenzell
Fürstenzell is a municipality in the district of Passau in Bavaria in Germany. Fürstenzell is the birthplace of former Bayern Munich defender Klaus Augenthaler....
near Passau
Passau
Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. Prior to working as a translator and clerk for the U.S. Army in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, he studied chemical engineering in Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
and later worked as a chemical analyst and petroleum chemist in Frankfurt, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. He moved to Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...
in 1959, and worked there as a metallurgist and analytical chemist.
Aman received his baccalaureate from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1965, and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas in 1968. (His dissertation was entitled "Der Kampf in Wolframs Parzival
Parzival
Parzival is a major medieval German romance by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, in the Middle High German language. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, is itself largely based on Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, the Story of the Grail and mainly centers on the Arthurian...
".) During his college years he taught the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
languages at various local high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
s, mostly on a part-time basis. In his last year at Texas, he also served as a teaching assistant
Teaching assistant
A teaching assistant is an individual who assists a professor or teacher with instructional responsibilities. TAs include graduate teaching assistants , who are graduate students; undergraduate teaching assistants , who are undergraduate students; secondary school TAs, who are either high school...
and teaching associate
Teaching associate
A teaching associate is an academically qualified and registered graduate student, usually in full-time residence, employed temporarily to teach freshman- and sophomore-level courses in an American university...
.
From 1968-1974, Aman was an assistant professor of German at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (which he now dismisses as "Dungheap U"), where he taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in German grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, stylistics
Stylistics (linguistics)
Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...
, conversation
Conversation
Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...
, phonetics
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
, philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, medieval
Medieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
and Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
literature, dialectology
Dialectology
Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features...
, bibliography
Bibliography
Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...
, and research methods.
Apart from Maledicta, Aman has published Bayrisch-Österreichisches Schimpfwörterbuch http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/boes.html (ISBN 3-86520-095-8), shorter monographs, as well as various books, including Hillary Clinton's Pen Pal http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/penpal_contents.html (ISBN 0-916500-14-4), a guide to the slang and mores of American prisons, directed to Hillary Clinton. At the time of writing, Mrs. Clinton was experiencing legal difficulties, and Dr. Aman claimed he wanted to turn his recent term in Federal prison (see below) to use by helping her understand the subculture, customs and specialized argot
Argot
An Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...
, so that she could avoid potentially-lethal faux pas.
Prison term
In 1993, Aman was sentenced to 27 months in federal prisonFederal Bureau of Prisons
The Federal Bureau of Prisons is a federal law enforcement agency subdivision of the United States Department of Justice and is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. The system also handles prisoners who committed acts considered felonies under the District of Columbia's...
for mailing, after a bitter divorce, two threatening postcards to his ex-wife and the allegedly threatening 2-page pamphlet "Legal Slimebags of Wisconsin" to many Wisconsin lawyers and judges. The postcards in question had pasted-up headlines of news articles about bitter ex-husbands killing their ex-wives. Because of a judicial error and his "good behavior" in prison, he actually served 15-1/2 months at Santa Rita, Terminal Island
Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island
Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island is a low-security prison for men located on Reservation Point on Terminal Island and in San Pedro, Los Angeles. The other Federal prison in the Los Angeles area is the Metropolitan Detention Center in Downtown Los Angeles...
, Lompoc
Federal Correctional Institution, Lompoc
The Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex is a complex with four United States federal prisons located near Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, California...
, and Dublin
Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin
The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin is a federal prison in the United States, primarily housing women. It is located near the city of Dublin in Alameda County, California, southeast of Oakland and approximately east of San Francisco....
(now a Federal prison for women only), and was released in February 1995.
Online presence
In addition to sharing his expertise in languages and verbal aggression, Aman is inclined to a vituperative mode of discourse and is known in certain UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroups as one inclined to participate in flame wars.
Personal life
Aman was married in 1960; has a daughter, Susan, born in 1964; and was divorced in 1990 (see "Prison term"). He now lives near Santa Rosa, CaliforniaSanta Rosa, California
Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California, United States. The 2010 census reported a population of 167,815. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's Wine Country and fifth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont and 26th...
.