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Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules than another language has different compound nouns than that other language". Auf D

Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules than another language has different compound nouns than that other language". Auf Deutsch: Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen haben verscheide zusammengesetztes Substantive.

allendoerfer 7y ago
To the non-native speakers: "Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen" looks long and German, but is not a German word. Maybe its parts were auto-corrected.
- deanjones 7y ago
  As that great Germanic comedian Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger might have said: "And here are the jokes ..." :-)
  - allendoerfer 7y ago
    And I am sitting here, thinking you actually wanted to say, "verschiedene Substantivzusammensetzungsrechtschreibverordnungen" lead to "verschieden zusammengesetzte Substantive", while you were just making jokes. Silly me :-)
    - deanjones 7y ago
      Yes.
coldtea 7y ago
>Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules than another language has different compound nouns than that other language". And different cultural and historical sensibilities expressed in those compound nouns - which is the main point of the article one would assume, not the mechanics...
- deanjones 7y ago
  From the article: "the unique wisdom of some of these words, that don't have an exact counterpart in the English language". So the claim is precisely that because English doesn't have single-word translations of these German terms, that the German words somehow encode "unique wisdom", which is obviously BS. In most cases, close examination reveals that it's unfounded BS. "Aufrichtigkeit" (Sincerity/Honesty) has the same 'literal' meaning as the English "upstanding", as in "an upstanding citizen". "Liebenswürdig" is just "lovable", and so on and so forth.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >From the article: "the unique wisdom of some of these words, that don't have an exact counterpart in the English language". So the claim is precisely that because English doesn't have single-word translations of these German terms, that the German words somehow encode "unique wisdom", which is obviously BS. As for the general claim, not so obviously. For one, "wisdom" here is not meant as some expert understanding of who we are and what to do in general (the generic sense of wisdom), but as improved insight about a sentiment/situation captured in a specific word, as opposed to a language that can only describe it in many ad-hoc words. To put it in IT terms, those words avoid an extra pointer interaction to the subject matter. Or having them is like having first class support for something that in English only can be achieved with "design patterns" and extra ceremony (of course there are English words which the German don't have too). As for specific examples in the article, sure, they might not be the best picks to illustrate the general claim.
    - deanjones 7y ago
      When discussing linguistic issues, it's best to use linguistic theory and terminology, rather than misleading analogies to software development. What you are propounding is a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that language structure (such as lexical rules which allow free construction of compound nouns) somehow influences or constrains cognitive processes. Among the linguistics community, it is widely accepted that there is very little evidence for this relativistic view, and it has been largely rejected. The author of the article is obviously not aware of any of this, and doesn't care. He is writing without concern for the truth status of what he is saying, his aim is only for attention. This is the very definition of bullshit according to the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in his essay "On Bullshit": "It is just this lack of connection to a concern with the truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as of the essence of bullshit".

allendoerfer 7y ago

To the non-native speakers: "Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen" looks long and German, but is not a German word. Maybe its parts were auto-corrected.

deanjones 7y ago
As that great Germanic comedian Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger might have said: "And here are the jokes ..." :-)
- allendoerfer 7y ago
  And I am sitting here, thinking you actually wanted to say, "verschiedene Substantivzusammensetzungsrechtschreibverordnungen" lead to "verschieden zusammengesetzte Substantive", while you were just making jokes. Silly me :-)
  - deanjones 7y ago
    Yes.

coldtea 7y ago

>Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules than another language has different compound nouns than that other language". And different cultural and historical sensibilities expressed in those compound nouns - which is the main point of the article one would assume, not the mechanics...

deanjones 7y ago
From the article: "the unique wisdom of some of these words, that don't have an exact counterpart in the English language". So the claim is precisely that because English doesn't have single-word translations of these German terms, that the German words somehow encode "unique wisdom", which is obviously BS. In most cases, close examination reveals that it's unfounded BS. "Aufrichtigkeit" (Sincerity/Honesty) has the same 'literal' meaning as the English "upstanding", as in "an upstanding citizen". "Liebenswürdig" is just "lovable", and so on and so forth.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >From the article: "the unique wisdom of some of these words, that don't have an exact counterpart in the English language". So the claim is precisely that because English doesn't have single-word translations of these German terms, that the German words somehow encode "unique wisdom", which is obviously BS. As for the general claim, not so obviously. For one, "wisdom" here is not meant as some expert understanding of who we are and what to do in general (the generic sense of wisdom), but as improved insight about a sentiment/situation captured in a specific word, as opposed to a language that can only describe it in many ad-hoc words. To put it in IT terms, those words avoid an extra pointer interaction to the subject matter. Or having them is like having first class support for something that in English only can be achieved with "design patterns" and extra ceremony (of course there are English words which the German don't have too). As for specific examples in the article, sure, they might not be the best picks to illustrate the general claim.
  - deanjones 7y ago
    When discussing linguistic issues, it's best to use linguistic theory and terminology, rather than misleading analogies to software development. What you are propounding is a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that language structure (such as lexical rules which allow free construction of compound nouns) somehow influences or constrains cognitive processes. Among the linguistics community, it is widely accepted that there is very little evidence for this relativistic view, and it has been largely rejected. The author of the article is obviously not aware of any of this, and doesn't care. He is writing without concern for the truth status of what he is saying, his aim is only for attention. This is the very definition of bullshit according to the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in his essay "On Bullshit": "It is just this lack of connection to a concern with the truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as of the essence of bullshit".