I saw an ad for the Tiguan, an accomplished piece of kit judging by HJ's road test, if neither cheap nor especially economical on fuel, whose key slogan was: 'Das Auto'.
'The Car'. I post this not to draw attention to VW's fairly large implied claim, but the fact that automobil is a neuter word. Of course in English almost everything is neuter, although this doesn't stop people from sexualising ships, boats, cars and cats in their casual references to these things. But all words for car are feminine in French: voiture (carriage), bagnole (jalopy) and ferraille (scrapiron or utter shed). Macchina, the usual word for car in Italian, is feminine too.
Are we and the Germans a bit lacking in soul? Or are we more rational than these excitable Latin types who can't see anything without wanting to fight it or jump on it?
|
Damn. Of course the German word Automobil should start with a capital letter, because all nouns do in German. By giving all nouns equal billing with names the German language makes it much more difficult to navigate through a text by spotting names on the page. The whole thing is a forest of name-like nouns.
This sort of thing makes me laugh unkindly when foreigners complain about the illogicality of English grammar and its bizarre and irregular spellings and pronunciations.
|
|
|
|
Woukd you prefer "der PKW"?
|
|
|
'The Car'. I post this not to draw attention to VW's fairly large implied claim but the fact that automobil is a neuter word. Of course in English almost everything is neuter although this doesn't stop people from sexualising ships boats cars and cats in their casual references to these things.
Cats come in two sexes, unlike boats and cars, so it makes sense to refer to them as he or she. I agree that the sex of a cat isn't obvious from a casual glance.
Cars and all other machines are 'it'.
|
'Auto' is essentially an 'imported' word in German and probably why its neuter. Der Wagen is of course masculine.
The genders in German are not obvious though, for example a boy (Die Junge) is feminine as is the railway (Die Bahn) - there are loads of other contradictory examples.
|
The genders in German are not obvious though for example a boy (Die Junge) is feminine
Hate to disagree with you Aprilia, but "the boy" is "Der Junge". Junge is always masculine the only exception being when talking about a newborn child in a neutral way e.g. "Das Junge" would translate to "the newborn".
I'll get my coat without even trying to think of a motoring link for this post;-)
|
Hate to disagree with you Aprilia but "the boy" is "Der Junge". Junge is always masculine the only exception being when talking about a newborn child in a neutral way e.g. "Das Junge" would translate to "the newborn".
Yes, I thought about it a moment and you are quite correct. OK, I'll offer up 'Das Maedchen' in my defence!
|
OK I'll offer up 'Das Maedchen' in my defence!
There is actually a grammatical (and not very interesting) explanation as to why it's "das Maedchen" and not "die Maedchen". I won't bore you with it here!
|
|
|
|
>> The genders in German are not obvious though
Nor in French. The commonly used words for the male and female organs of generation are feminine and masculine respectively. English is derived from various languages that had genders for everything, but we seem to have rationalised that side of it over the centuries.
|
|
|
|
|
£37,395was £37,595Details
£25,698was £28,483Details
£33,490was £34,898Details
£25,290was £25,898Details