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The Awful German Language (1880)

(faculty.georgetown.edu)
187 points nalinidash | 2 comments | 16 May 25 04:09 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ycuser2 ◴[16 May 25 04:37 UTC] No.44001883[source]▶
"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.

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DocTomoe ◴[16 May 25 04:43 UTC] No.44001908[source]▶
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.

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Helmut10001 ◴[16 May 25 05:05 UTC] No.44001994[source]▶
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.
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ahofmann ◴[16 May 25 05:25 UTC] No.44002080[source]▶
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.
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1. Helmut10001 ◴[16 May 25 06:25 UTC] No.44002345[source]▶
Yes, perhaps you are right. But then, look at who responded to my comment - all usernames suggest male companions. We are also now, not back then. Nothing prevents us from rethinking things from time to time.
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2. jraph ◴[16 May 25 06:49 UTC] No.44002471[source]▶
Yes, sexism is not a new thing from today, and such sentences are witnesses of this. We might be interpreting stuff from the past with today's eyes, true, but that doesn't make the interpretation wrong. There are a lot of things we know now and didn't before. It's even totally possible we have reading keys that might have been unavailable back then.

We should not interpret stuff out of context though, but here I'm not sure taking the context in account would not make the point even stronger. I would be quite surprised about any context changing things for this particular phrase (but happy to be surprised...)