LL-L 'Grammar' 2007.02.04 (07) [E.German]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 03 February 2007 - Volume 07

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Grammar' 2007.02.04 (02) [E/German]

Karl-Heinz,

don't you remember: you said:
 >  Karl-Heinz wrote:
 > >For those who are learning Standard-German: You have the choice between

 > >...

 > >2. a dative construction: „dem Vogel seine Hochzeit"

So I only objected because you called this "standard German", which it is
definitely not. Of course it is used in plenty of German dialects, but
that's a different matter entirely.

>"Geht hin nach Hannover, in die Hauptstadt der angeblichen Niedersachsen.
>Ihr werdet dort blühende Landschaften erleben, in der nicht Plattdeutsch
>oder ein schlechtes Missingsch gesprochen wird, sondern ein perfektes
>Hochdeutsch aus der Konserve."

Excuse me, but - what a load of rubbish! You've never been to Hannover, have
you? It doesn't even feature "blühende Landschaften", it's an industrial
city and was quickly cobbled together again after being almost completely
destroyed in WWII.

Here's a standard joke from Hannover, to provide some food for thought.

Karl-Heinz geht - natürlich mit seinem Dackel - in Hannover in den
Fischladen und fragt die Verkäuferin: "Haben Sie Aale?"
Verkäuferin: "Naan, ich höbe Zaat!"

By the way, my father was from Hannover, and he spoke Platt as well as the
local dialect.

Anyway, the genitive is (luckily, because it's beautiful!) quite commonly
used in spoken High German, among young and old. There just isn't another
way of saying "der Gebrauch des Genitivs".

>Und deshalb ist die Hochdeutsche Sprache u.a. so pseudo-logisch und
eindeutig,
>sodass Wortspiele nur eingeschränkt möglich sind. Ich glaube Gabriele, du
hast ja
>auch einmal sinngemäß geschrieben: puns work better in English than in
Dutch,
>but in German they don't work at all.

Oh no, you got that all wrong! I live for puns in any language, including,
of course, my native one. Here's a limerick I wrote, to illustrate this:

"Ein Bahnhofsvorsteher in Celle
war leider nicht sonderlich helle.
Er war frisch getraut
und trug seine Braut
Am Abstellgleis über die Schwelle."

What I was talking about at the time were cryptic crosswords, a different
matter altogether. There are many German words that have double meanings,
but in this specific setting, lots of three- and four-letter-words are
required.

Well, nobody is forcing you to speak High German if you don't like it, but
the fact remains that it is still the standard, and any construction such as
"dem Karl-Heinz sein geliebter Dativ" is not! :-)

Gabriele Kahn
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