Exactly

Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, childrens' television programming was starkly different than today's dedicated networks of mind fry and distraction. While the behaviors I exhibited then are the same as what my children tend to exhibit (unplugging from my surroundings, sitting and staring at a box), the distraction selection then was severely limited to 3 major channels, and maybe a few extra minor channels. Afterall, we kids back then didn't have a tremendous amount of expendable income, so the marketing and revenue potential was weaker. Reruns and limited programming did have a tendency to motivate us to get up and move, although a rerun of Ultraman or Johnny Socko and the Flying Robot was always worth watching over and over. For a young boy, our heroes were Speed Racer, Batman and Robin, Superman in black and white, or the Green Hornet. Our early life lessons and language teachers were mostly surreal puppets from Sesame Street, HR PufnStuf, New Zoo Review,and Gary Gnu from The Great Space Coaster. Even the Electric Company resorted to puppets now and then.

I remembered Gary Gnu recently. The memory was triggered by a word very often used here. The word is "genau". It is pronounced like "geh-now", with emphasis on the second syllable. It means "exactly". I hear it everywhere I go, often strung together in repeating phrases. "Genau, genau." Surely two exactlys together is a stronger confirmation of agreement than only one. Yesterday, I heard it strung together 3 times. "Ja, genau, genau... genau." As an outsider, I have heard the Swiss Germans lovingly referred to as the people of Greutzi and Genau.