this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
166 points (95.6% liked)

Europe

1529 readers
422 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.

founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

While you're right that there is a rabbit hole to go down, we just didn't have a solution for this so far.
"Matthias' car" translates as "Matthias Auto", which could also be a new Disney character.

The problem is much less frequent in German, though, because our plurals don't generally end with a 's'.

[–] federalreverse@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

What? That's completely untrue! Any time, the word ends on an s sound, the apostrophe moves to [the end of the word].

Matthias's car (or alternatively, Matthias' car) is Matthias' Auto.

Assuming the final e is not pronounced, Alice's car becomes Alice' Auto. Alternatively, it can be Alices Auto if the final e is pronounced.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Interestingly, the Duden also spits out Matthias' as possible genitive: https://www.duden.de/deklination/substantive/Matthias_Vorname
But I was then unsure, if they had already integrated the Deppenapostroph-rule.

I wouldn't know having seen an apostrophe in genitive in a formal text before, but no idea. Maybe there's regional differences. Would explain why Duden lists both.


Original German comment:

Interessanterweise hat der Duden auch Matthias' als möglichen Genitiv ausgespuckt: https://www.duden.de/deklination/substantive/Matthias_Vorname
Aber ich war mir dann unsicher, ob die schon direkt die Deppenapostroph-Regel aufgenommen hatten.

Ich wüsste nicht, dass ich schonmal einen Apostroph beim Genitiv in einem formalen Text gesehen hätte, aber ja, kein Plan. Vielleicht gibt's da auch regionale Unterschiede. Würde erklären, warum der Duden beides listet...

[–] federalreverse@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

(Ftr: This is an English-language community.)

But Duden listing Matthias as a possible genitive is wild. It seems they just list it in a weird way, because Jeremia is certainly not a reasonable genitive of Jeremia:

duden.de: Jeremia | genitive: Jeremia, Jeremias

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Hmm, I think Jeremia is an irregular case, due to it mostly being a biblical name and I think in biblical texts, they write it as "des Jeremia". No idea, if that was just en vogue when the bible got translated or what the reason is for that.

But the Duden describes the general rule of thumb for nouns ending in 's' (or similar sounds) by extending them with "-es": https://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/Genitiv-auf-s-oder-es

But "des Matthiases" just sounds archaic.
They also list "des Hans" as the only possible genitive: https://www.duden.de/deklination/substantive/Hans_Mann
So, maybe these are special cases, too...