[OT] Please clarify a German sentence

To German-speaking List members:

In the late teens and early 1920s, Alois Haba studied
with Franz Schreker in Vienna.

Haba's first major quarter-tone piece was his
_String Quartet No. 2_, op. 7, published in 1921.

My MIDI-file of the first 49 seconds is at
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/haba/2qt.mid

(BTW, I really love what I know of this piece so far!)

Schreker eventually helped to get that piece published,
but at first he didn't like it.

According to Haba's book _Mein Weg_ [My Way], p. 39,
Schreker's first reaction was: "Mensch, sind Sie
verru:cht geworden?".

Does this mean "Man, have you gone crazy?"
or is it somthing else?

In Karl Breul, _A New German and English Dictionary_
[1906 edition; the corrected reprint I have is from 1909]
has this entry:

Verru:cht
- (p.p. & adj.) wrong, out of order (of clocks,
etc.); mad, crazy; cracked; foolish; funny, droll (coll.)

But a few entries above it has:

Verruchter Mensch [without the umlaut on "u"]
- abandoned wretch.

Is it possible that by using "Mensch" at the beginning,
Schreker was making a pun on this term? Does that make
any sense in German?

Please clarify; respond privately.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

--- In tuning@y..., "Joe Monzo, "monz"" <MONZ@J...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_20131.html#20131

>
> To German-speaking List members:
>
> ...
>
> According to Haba's book _Mein Weg_ [My Way], p. 39,
> Schreker's first reaction was: "Mensch, sind Sie
> verru:cht geworden?".

Many thanks to all those who responded.

I'm quite surprised that those of you who understand German
well, are unanimous in saying that there was no pun here.

Oh well... I guess sometimes (rarely) things come out *better*
in translation! ;-)

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"