3 ms·

If you like to use German names, please observe that "Das Referenz" is not correct German (for native German "Das Referenz" sounds like the German spoken by les

by wolfgke 12y ago

If you like to use German names, please observe that "Das Referenz" is not correct German (for native German "Das Referenz" sounds like the German spoken by less able Turkish immigrants, especially when combined with an accent). "Referenz" is a female noun - thus "Die Referenz" is correct German.

spicyj 12y ago
An odd mistake considering they're based in Germany.
- wolfgke 12y ago
  Then they probably wanted to sound hipster-wise, but nevertheless the hipster-usage of "das" rather reminds me of the following excerpt from a German comedy program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l21uhFCljlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l21uhFCljlU - where "das Bus" is used with a Turkish accent (the comedian Kaya Yanar was born in Turkey).
  - vacri 12y ago
    Using 'Die' for an English-speaking audience would cause more confusion, I think. Instead of thinking "The Reference", most would initially think "Who would want to kill this Referenz guy?". 'Die' in English is never pronounced the way it is in German. So while Das Referenz may be awful German, it's more evocative of German than the correct term to the English ear. Just a guess, though.
    - jkrems 12y ago
      Well, they would have had alternatives. Like using a different name or just dropping the article completely and going with "Referenz". Choosing "das" seems like a very cheap attempt at copying Volkswagen style ads. Not to mention that I'm not sure there's anything connecting "encyclopedia" to "German" (as with "cars"/"engineering").
ulfw 12y ago
Turkish? I'd say American. A lot of people here know 'Das Boot' and have used 'Das' multiple time to try to describe German nouns to me
3rd3 12y ago
Maybe to keep it gender neutral?
- sp332 12y ago
  It's not about male or female people, but about a linguistic feature where certain words are syntactically "masculine" or "feminine". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender#Correlation_between_gender_and_the_form_of_a_noun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender#Correlation...
  - 3rd3 12y ago
    I meant an extreme form of gender-neutral planned language. Another reason might be that "Die" clashes with the English verb "to die".
- wolfgke 12y ago
  Those people who want this "gender neutral" speak really can't be pleased. Consider for example this case (in German, sorry) > http://www.danisch.de/blog/2013/03/14/zwangsverblodung-im-soziologie-studium/ http://www.danisch.de/blog/2013/03/14/zwangsverblodung-im-so... where some female professor for gender studies complains that the neutral article "das" is used for "Mädchen" ("das Mächen" - "the girl"), because this way girls are degraded to objects. For science: the grammatical reason "Mächen" is neuter is because it is the minimization of the outdated noun "Maid".

by wolfgke 12y ago

spicyj 12y ago

An odd mistake considering they're based in Germany.

wolfgke 12y ago
Then they probably wanted to sound hipster-wise, but nevertheless the hipster-usage of "das" rather reminds me of the following excerpt from a German comedy program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l21uhFCljlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l21uhFCljlU - where "das Bus" is used with a Turkish accent (the comedian Kaya Yanar was born in Turkey).
- vacri 12y ago
  Using 'Die' for an English-speaking audience would cause more confusion, I think. Instead of thinking "The Reference", most would initially think "Who would want to kill this Referenz guy?". 'Die' in English is never pronounced the way it is in German. So while Das Referenz may be awful German, it's more evocative of German than the correct term to the English ear. Just a guess, though.
  - jkrems 12y ago
    Well, they would have had alternatives. Like using a different name or just dropping the article completely and going with "Referenz". Choosing "das" seems like a very cheap attempt at copying Volkswagen style ads. Not to mention that I'm not sure there's anything connecting "encyclopedia" to "German" (as with "cars"/"engineering").

ulfw 12y ago

Turkish? I'd say American. A lot of people here know 'Das Boot' and have used 'Das' multiple time to try to describe German nouns to me

3rd3 12y ago

Maybe to keep it gender neutral?

sp332 12y ago
It's not about male or female people, but about a linguistic feature where certain words are syntactically "masculine" or "feminine". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender#Correlation_between_gender_and_the_form_of_a_noun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender#Correlation...
- 3rd3 12y ago
  I meant an extreme form of gender-neutral planned language. Another reason might be that "Die" clashes with the English verb "to die".
wolfgke 12y ago
Those people who want this "gender neutral" speak really can't be pleased. Consider for example this case (in German, sorry) > http://www.danisch.de/blog/2013/03/14/zwangsverblodung-im-soziologie-studium/ http://www.danisch.de/blog/2013/03/14/zwangsverblodung-im-so... where some female professor for gender studies complains that the neutral article "das" is used for "Mädchen" ("das Mächen" - "the girl"), because this way girls are degraded to objects. For science: the grammatical reason "Mächen" is neuter is because it is the minimization of the outdated noun "Maid".