LL-L 'Orthography' 2007.01.30 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 30 January 2007 - Volume 04

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Orthography' 2007.01.30 (01) [E]

Karl-Heinz wrote:

>You are right, but maybe the tendency of non-native German speakers and
writers to use it unattached has its reason in the >grammatically more
correct form: "(Des) Vogels Hochzeit"? (the bird's wedding)

No, I don't think so. Spelling a compound noun in separate words is just a
plain anglicism ("The Bird Wedding"), and it's one of my greatest problems
as an editor these days. Even experienced translators seem to have forgotten
everything they ever learned about German grammar and spelling ever since
that cursed "spelling reform" came to make our lives miserable. Compound
nouns are very often misspelled by managers and software developers now, and
sometimes even by journalists. So how is everyone else supposed to know what
is correct?

Yes, this is one of my pet peeves, and one that I find extremely painful.
After all, to me, the way a language looks is much more important than how
it sounds! It makes me wince like others do when a word is permanently
mispronounced.

Anyway, how could it be "des Vogels Hochzeit" in the first place? There are
at least two of them getting married... and I don't see how that would be
grammatically more correct. You also say "der Affenzirkus" and not "des
Affen Zirkus", just to name an example...

Gabriele Kahn

•

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