Germans Decry Influence of English As 'Idiot's Apostrophe' Gets Official Approval (theguardian.com) 55
A recent relaxation of rules around apostrophes in German, permitting their use in possessive forms like "Eva's Blumenladen," has sparked criticism from traditionalists and concerns over the influence of English on the German language. The Guardian reports: Establishments that feature their owners' names, with signs like "Rosi's Bar" or "Kati's Kiosk" are a common sight around German towns and cities, but strictly speaking they are wrong: unlike English, German does not traditionally use apostrophes to indicate the genitive case or possession. The correct spelling, therefore, would be "Rosis Bar," "Katis Kiosk," or, as in the title of a recent viral hit, Barbaras Rhabarberbar. However, guidelines issued by the body regulating the use of Standard High German orthography have clarified that the use of the punctuation mark colloquially known as the Deppenapostroph ("idiot's apostrophe") has become so widespread that it is permissible -- as long as it separates the genitive 's' within a proper name.
The new edition of the Council for German Orthography's style guide, which prescribes grammar use at schools and public bodies in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, lists "Eva's Blumenladen" (Eva's Flower Shop) and "Peter's Taverne" (Peter's Tavern) as usable alternatives, though "Eva's Brille" ("Eva's glasses") remains incorrect. The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer's apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an 's' is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun ("a kilo of potato's"). The new set of rules came into effect in July, and the council said a loosening of the rules in 1996 meant that "Rosi's Bar" had strictly speaking not been incorrect for almost three decades. Yet over the past few days, German newspapers and social media networks have seen a pedants' revolt against the loosening of grammar rules.
The new edition of the Council for German Orthography's style guide, which prescribes grammar use at schools and public bodies in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, lists "Eva's Blumenladen" (Eva's Flower Shop) and "Peter's Taverne" (Peter's Tavern) as usable alternatives, though "Eva's Brille" ("Eva's glasses") remains incorrect. The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer's apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an 's' is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun ("a kilo of potato's"). The new set of rules came into effect in July, and the council said a loosening of the rules in 1996 meant that "Rosi's Bar" had strictly speaking not been incorrect for almost three decades. Yet over the past few days, German newspapers and social media networks have seen a pedants' revolt against the loosening of grammar rules.
Take it a step further please (Score:3)
Make den der das and die all interchangeable, itâ(TM)s confusing trying to learn German as a native English speaker.
Why do words need genders?
Re: (Score:1)
Words are only echos of the people and not the people themselves.
Re: (Score:1)
We ARE talking about people. Right?
So should society be exposed to that sort of abject, unrelenting idiocy? We've done without it for tens of thousands of years.
Re: (Score:1)
We could do away with a lot of baggage in English too. Why have fly flew flown when we could have fly flied flied. I remember hearing about a radio sportscaster saying some hitter 'flied out', that is, hit a fly ball that was caught. So, just make fly as in what airplanes do be the same as fly when hitting a fly ball. And do the same for all the other strong verbs, like swim, see, run, etc. Oh, and why put an s after a verb in 3rd person singular, make it I run, you run, he run, they run.
Lerners of Eng
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
German is both versatile and economical of vocabulary when considering flies: "Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach."
Is this BS about Buffalo?
Re: Take it a step further please (Score:1)
Why do words need genders?
Oh the many reasons:
1. Because they've always had gender.
2. To add a little spice to puns, jokes, and other wordplay.
3. The best reason of all: to piss off the gender-weirdos in the Anglosphere.
Re: (Score:2)
Well genders are painful. Or something.
There are, of course, plenty of people—including many women—who have no problem being addressed as “guys,” think the word has evolved to be entirely gender-neutral, and don't see a reason to change their usage. But others aren’t so sure.
In my reporting I heard from several people who said that the word is particularly troubling for trans and gender-nonconforming people. “As a transgender woman, I consciously began trying to stop using guys some years ago,” says Brad Ward, a college counselor at a high school in Atherton, California. She added, “When I’m included with a group that is called guys, there’s some pain, since it takes me back to my male days in a way that I’d rather not go.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Doesn't matter how you use language or what your intentions are. People who want to be offended will find a way to be offended by it. Being oppressed is a virtue now, get with the times dude.
How are they going to rage in the news? (Score:2)
If English is sanitized, cleaned up, de-cluttered, or simplified how will the media write articles which
- use softening language if a crime is committed by a media favored person or group
- use incendiary language if a crime is committed by a person or group hated by the media
Two quotes from - https://www.worthwhileconsulti... [worthwhileconsulting.com]
The dangers of “softening language”
"For example, Ghislaine M is often described as “sourcing” girls who were “abused.” This softening language does n
Consder the defniition of pelt (Score:2)
I remember reading a news article where the reporter's kid learned the definition for the word 'pelt' as 'to throw something which hits a person'.
The news article then went on to mention that pelt also means animal skin, as in a beaver pelt, which had importance in the settling of Canada and the USA.
Is this were it's headed, where inconvenient words and inconvenient word definitions are systemically removed from what is taught in schools, appropriate for work conversations, in the media and books?
Words do g
Re: Take it a step further please (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
itâ(TM)s
Ah... a classic case of the idiot's apostrophe.
Re: (Score:2)
+1
Re: Take it a step further please (Score:2)
A classic case of apple keyboard.
Re: (Score:2)
itâ(TM)s very confusing to me
Incormation coding (Score:2)
Why do words need genders?
They clearly don't (viz: English), but can be used for denser information coding.
A language can have few words and encode a larger number of meanings using stems such as masculine and feminine.
To take a synthetic example, you could have a numeric stem to indicate size of a (piece of) wood: the word for twig would be "one-wood", branch is "two-wood", limb is "three-wood", and trunk/log could be "four-wood". Applying the numeric stem to words allows multiple concepts to be encoded in fewer words.
Gendered noun
Re: Incormation coding (Score:2)
But there are no rules to say which word is which gender.
You just need to learn it for each word.
Why is a fork masculine and a spoon feminine?
Gabel and LÃffel
Why are cows and pigs feminine but goats and chickens are masculine?
Devolving into, the babble of babel! (Score:1)
Oh yay!
Re: (Score:2)
>>a pedants' revolt
Glad we never have that on /.
English is the language of Shakespeare, Milton (Score:1, Troll)
and the Bible.
All them foreigners would be much better off if they abandoned their barbarian mumbles and just spoke English.
And no stupid regional accents neither. Peoria Illinois or go fuck yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I object to that characterization, it's a semi-incompetent translation of a politically motivated and expurgated translation of a politically motivated and expurgated translation of a semi-incompetent translation.
Re: English is the language of Shakespeare, Milton (Score:2)
English has no such problem; it has taken up words from a vast number of other languages and is the better for it.
It's neither better nor worse, but you might imagine how a bastard tongue of at least threw successively conquering peoples, that might rightly be called a pidgeon and not a real language by some lights, would be discomfitting to a people who have an actual language academy in charge of their words.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the language is called a pidgin. A pidgeon is a bird.
Re: English is the language of Shakespeare, Milton (Score:2)
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, before English was even a language.
English is maybe 1500 years old, and is now quite different
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think Milton will be making any distinction between English speakers and Spanish speakers as it goes through Florida.
Practice more; complain less... (Score:2)
If it has reached the point where the RdR has gone with a "fine, do apostrophes" position German speak
The English use apostrophies for plurls? (Score:2)
The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer's apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an 's' is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun ("a kilo of potato's").
It's always been potatoes.
Re: (Score:2)
Should we write "two Bs" or "two B's"? Or should we add an "e" as in "potatoes"? Two Bes.
Re: (Score:2)
How about half a bee?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Once English speakers learn that the apostrophe isn't just for contractions and can be used before the s to indicate the possessive, they then apply that knowledge while forgetting the bit about it being for the possessive.
I see it on store signs, billboards, and Slashdot posts for pluralization. It's extremely irritating.
Re: The English use apostrophies for plurls? (Score:2)
Kartoffel or kartoffeln
German's, you're in good company (Score:2)
English speaker's don't know how to use apostrophe's either!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's your point? The article is not about spoken language, it's talking about apostrophes, which are by definition *written*.
Re: (Score:2)
W'e shou'ld jus't ad'd it where t' fu'ck ev'r. Fu'ck Ev'r might even make a good elven village in a fantasy novel.
At least English doesn't do this (Score:2)
In spite of the fact that far too many native-English-speakers make a lot of cringe-worthy mistakes, English doesn't assign gender to inanimate objects. Checkmate.
Re: (Score:2)
With some exceptions like "ship".
Germans decry influence of English? (Score:2)
English is German with a French overlay. The other overlay is Norse, which is also German.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Celt (Score:2)
There's also some Celt thrown in there. Or is that from Norse as well? I can't remember.
Re: Germans decry influence of English? (Score:2)
Germans decrying the influence of English give me schadenfreude.
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory: Ze drem vil finali kum tru (Score:1)
Ze drem vil finali kum tru. [upenn.edu]
Linguistic humor, English spelling reform
Source: An old chestnut. In its globalized incarnation below, via Steven Gearhart.
English in the Future
Directors at Daimler Benz and Chrysler have announced an agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for communications, rather than German, which was another possibility.
As part of the negotiations, directors at Chrysler conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and have accepted a five-year phase-in plan. In t
Full Circle: It came from German (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Europe vs English (Score:2)
English regarding any other language, slang, or new word whatsoever: "We'll take it."
Pedant's Revolt (Score:2)
News for Nerds? That's a big 10-4, good buddy.
Its [sic] not about English (Score:3)
I thought the "idiot's apostrophe" would be "it's" for possession (or lack thereof for the contraction), as in: "The dog licked it's paw". Intuitively this actually makes some sense, as it's parallel to "Spot's paw". But native English speakers might not realize the division is clear: possessive nouns have an apostrophe, while possessive pronouns ("his", "hers", "mine") do not.
Why don't verbs date pronouns? Because the pronouns can get possessive. Also, it gets expensive.
Re: (Score:2)
Note: "mine" should have been "my". "Mine" is a possessive adjective, not a pronoun.
Hey! (Score:5, Funny)
It should be the idiots' apostrophe. Not the idiot's apostrophe. There's more than one of us.