4 ms·
[To be clear, the below is me agreeing with you] Norwegian is almost as compound-happy as German, and we could've filled many volumes with compounds. But what
by vidarh 8mo ago
[To be clear, the below is me agreeing with you]
Norwegian is almost as compound-happy as German, and we could've filled many volumes with compounds. But what generally happens for one of the compunds to enter the dictionary is that the compound needs to have a meaning that is non-obvious from the individual parts, at least to some people, and typically that the compound has a non-obvious meaning if interpreted as two separate words.
E.g. "akterutseilt" is an example. "Akterut" means behind, aft. "Seilt" means sailed. "Behind sailed" helps as a way to remember it, but it's not obvious whether it's strictly a sailing term, or means that you've been left behind or have left someone else behind.
In this case if you say someone has been akterutseilt, it means they've been metaphorically left behind, often by their own failure to keep up.
Those kinds of compounds deserve dictionary entries whether they are actually written in two words or one, because they function as a single unit however it is written.
I think black hole is a perfect example in English. And in fact, this is a compound that is written in two words in Norwegian as well, but is in Norwegian dictionaries despite that[1] as "svart hull".
[1] https://ordbokene.no/bm/svart%20hull https://ordbokene.no/bm/svart%20hull
- michaeld123 8mo agoGreat example — I added svart hull to the article as an illustration of a language that writes it as two words but still puts it in the dictionary because the meaning isn't obvious from the parts. That's exactly the instinct English lacks.
- Skeime 8mo agoFun fact: I looked this up in the online version of the Duden (the predominant German dictionary). It does have an entry "Black Hole" (so the English term!) but not for "schwarzes Loch", which is the normal German term for it. (In the printed versions, you might need to go to the Universalwörterbuch or so to find the English entry, it might not be in the normal "Die deutsche Rechtschreibung"; I have not checked.)
- vidarh 8mo ago> Duden Just the name gives me flashbacks to German-lessons in highschool.
- OoooooooO 8mo agoThe Duden is not official since 1996. Since 2004 the official guidelines for the german speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Swiss, Belgium, South Tirol, Liechtenstein, Romania, Hungary - see this founding document with the list: https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/wiener_erklaerung.pdf https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/wiener_erklaerung.pdf) are covered by the Rechtschreibrat (https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/ https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/). The official german dictionary is here: https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/rechtschreibung/6774 https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/rechtschreibung/6774
- Skeime 8mo agoI wrote "predominant", not "official". And I think that is still true. Also, from what I can tell using the site, it does not serve as a full dictionary. Rather, it lists the general rules of German orthography (as decided by the Rechtschreibrat) and has some limited tables of special words.
- michaeld123 8mo agoAnd I attempted to add your 'svart hull' note.