Hilarious, wish I would have seen this when I was studying German.
ycuser2 · 1h ago
"Tomcat" is male in German, not female: Der Kater.
"Wife" is female in German, not neutral: Die Ehefrau. "Weib" is old language and rude to use these days.
DocTomoe · 1h ago
Consider that the text is, in fact, from the 19th century.
Also, 'Weib' is not rude in every context. "Wein, Weib und Gesang" is not diminutive towards women, but in fact appreciative (as in 'necessary for having a good time'). We have Weiberfassnacht. And then there are the dialects, in which "Weib" often is indicative of a homely, loving relationship (-> bairisch, Swabian). Context matters.
ralfd · 36m ago
And “weiblich” is the commonly used adjective instead of the Latin derived feminine.
Helmut10001 · 53m ago
Sorry to be picky, but "Wein, Weib und Gesang" is not neutral. It reduces "Weib" to the value of Wein and Gesang, something only needed for pleasure.
ahofmann · 33m ago
You are applying logic and common sense from this century, to words of other centuries. This doesn't work, and never will. I think this is important, because a lot of people do this and nothing good comes out of it.
wilgertvelinga · 36m ago
Why do you assume reduction?
ForgotMyUUID · 26m ago
Ahaha, was für ein Scheißkerl!
Frankly, I used this text to tease my teacher when he suggested to read something in German together.
ralfd · 33m ago
It is interesting that after two world wars the stereotype of German was that of a hard and harsh language. I think Twain earlier take is more correct.
DocTomoe · 1h ago
As a native German speaker: Everything Twain rants about here we attribute to French.
psychoslave · 39m ago
Hmm, French definitely has ornamental noun paradigms affecting articles and adjectives, exceptions to every single rule and things like that. But it lakes the cases that German add on top of this. Syntax is not as funny with verb at second position, or end of the phrase, separable verbs, and so on.
French of course also have many original grammatical torture instruments. You might think that as a bastard child between Latin and the Germanic Frank tribe dialects it’s no wonder, though elimination of noun declension is rather surprising from this perspective. The truth is that all languages out there have their own dungeon with many traps and treacheries included.
Fortune, nun ni ĉiuj parolas Esperanton. Kaj ne forgesas la akuzativo nin. :D
DocTomoe · 22m ago
> French of course also have many original grammatical torture instruments.
For me it was when I had to realize that for the French, every number larger than what they can count with their fingers becomes a small algebra problem. quatre-vingt-dix-neuf ... four times twenty plus ten plus nine makes 99.
jandrewrogers · 2m ago
Swiss French seems to have regularized some of this in a sensible way? Indian English does much the same with some things; not strictly “correct” English, to the extent those words don’t exist in British or American English, but I can’t argue that it doesn’t make more sense or isn’t more consistent so I never argue the case. I generally view those regularizing pressures from non-native sources as a positive thing for languages.
Svip · 11m ago
Well if you like that, you'd love Danish numbers, where 99 is nine and half (before) five times twenty, or »nioghalvfemsindstyve« (or more commonly shorten to »nioghalvfems«).
mark38848 · 1h ago
I suppose like the general American of today, he has just never really learnt an n-th language (where n>1).
jkaplowitz · 41m ago
He actually learned German well enough to have appreciative audiences in Germany, but he also knows how to make amazing comedic essays on many topics. He did plenty about US-specific topics, and about French too, not just about German.
GuestFAUniverse · 1h ago
Which gives us Hitler memes where they audibly says German words that are very similar to their English counterparts, but the /funny/ subtitles is just a Beavis and Butthead level joke.
Doesn't work as good if one has ears.
GuestFAUniverse · 1h ago
The example with the rain is wrong.
It's either the proper "wegen des Regens" (Genitiv), or the new idiom "wegen dem Regen" (Dativ).
"wegen den Regen" means something slightly different (more like: "because of _multiple_ rainfalls")
There's a whole book by Bastian Sick (famous German author) named "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod." -- the title about the Dativ being the death of the Genetiv is playing with that idiom.
As much as I like Twain, the English language is one of the hardest European languages, when it comes to pronunciation (contrary to Italian, which sticks to a few simple rules). So, you're welcome, choose your poison.
DocTomoe · 1h ago
> "wegen den Regen" means something slightly different (more like: "because of _multiple_ rainfalls")
That's your natural feel of language, and you are deriving from casual use of Dativ plural ... but in these situations, Genitiv would be correct again (wegen DER Regen, but more clearly: wegen der Regenfälle, as Regen is uncountable (unlike, for example, Sturm/Stürme)).
Your example is vernacular German as spoken on the road, but grammatically, it is incorrect.
Yes, I am lots of fun at parties.
cenamus · 28m ago
You sound like a prescriptivist ;)
minmax2020 · 1h ago
I would love to read "The Awful English Language" written in an alternative universe where Twain is German.
DocTomoe · 1h ago
I'd expect a lot of moaning about how something is written and how it is spelled to appear to come from two different planets.
jhbadger · 50m ago
Despite the offended Germans here, it is important to realize that Twain learned German well enough to perform (in German) in Germany, and was actually better known as basically the 19th-century version of a stand-up comic in America and Europe in his lifetime rather than the novelist he is remembered for now.
dang · 24m ago
I didn't see any offended Germans here! People seem to be taking the article in its intended (fun) spirit.
The Awful German Language (1880) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27173967 - May 2021 (253 comments)
The Awful German Language (1880) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18147467 - Oct 2018 (311 comments)
"Wife" is female in German, not neutral: Die Ehefrau. "Weib" is old language and rude to use these days.
Also, 'Weib' is not rude in every context. "Wein, Weib und Gesang" is not diminutive towards women, but in fact appreciative (as in 'necessary for having a good time'). We have Weiberfassnacht. And then there are the dialects, in which "Weib" often is indicative of a homely, loving relationship (-> bairisch, Swabian). Context matters.
French of course also have many original grammatical torture instruments. You might think that as a bastard child between Latin and the Germanic Frank tribe dialects it’s no wonder, though elimination of noun declension is rather surprising from this perspective. The truth is that all languages out there have their own dungeon with many traps and treacheries included.
Fortune, nun ni ĉiuj parolas Esperanton. Kaj ne forgesas la akuzativo nin. :D
For me it was when I had to realize that for the French, every number larger than what they can count with their fingers becomes a small algebra problem. quatre-vingt-dix-neuf ... four times twenty plus ten plus nine makes 99.
Doesn't work as good if one has ears.
There's a whole book by Bastian Sick (famous German author) named "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod." -- the title about the Dativ being the death of the Genetiv is playing with that idiom.
https://languagetool.org/insights/de/beitrag/dativ-genitiv-s... -- it's in German and discusses the (perceived) change of that idiom.
As much as I like Twain, the English language is one of the hardest European languages, when it comes to pronunciation (contrary to Italian, which sticks to a few simple rules). So, you're welcome, choose your poison.
That's your natural feel of language, and you are deriving from casual use of Dativ plural ... but in these situations, Genitiv would be correct again (wegen DER Regen, but more clearly: wegen der Regenfälle, as Regen is uncountable (unlike, for example, Sturm/Stürme)).
Your example is vernacular German as spoken on the road, but grammatically, it is incorrect.
Yes, I am lots of fun at parties.
Edit: Seems true of the previous threads as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44002116
Twain's style was so accessible, it's easy to forget this essay is almost 150 years old.