Franconian Beer Message Board

Excitement mounts in the Dative
Posted by Nick B. on 2013-10-28 01:53:11
Started reading that but lost interest, just too many folksy background stories to know in advance in order to make it as entertaining as I'm sure it should be. Also, when I was ganz frisch here, I mis-understood the meaning of the title, not really grasping the issue.

For those keeping score at home, it's the title of a humourous book about the supposed decline of the German language, with the title refering to one of the main complaints: people aren't using the genetive case as often as they should or could be, in favour of the dative, and then, incorrect, lazy use of the dative. It's as if people were to say "industrialisation is [to] *real* brewing its death" instead of "industrialisation is the death of *real* brewing".

"The Dative is the Death of the Genetive" would be the way to translate the title into proper English. And Most proper in German would be "The Dative is the Genetive's Death", using the genetive (Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genetivs), whose English counterpart "'s" isn't really so good in the case of inanimate objects. German does allow proper use of the dative in place of the (apparently harder to grasp / too poncey-sounding) genetive, which would correspond to "The dative is the death of the genetive / der Dativ ist der Tod vom Genetiv".

So to sum up...best would be "Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genetivs", second best would be "Der Dativ ist der Tod vom Genetiv", and "Der Dativ ist dem Genetiv sein Tod" ("The Dative is [to] the Genetive its Death") is right out.
 
Followups:
                 Excitement mounts in the Dative by Barry on  2013-10-28 03:09:04
                   Excitement mounts in the Dative by Nick B. on  2013-10-28 04:16:04
                     Excitement mounts in the Dative by barry on  2013-10-28 04:46:25
                       Evolution of English and German by Uncle Jimbo on  2013-10-28 19:55:06
                       Excitement mounts in the Dative by Nick B. on  2013-10-29 12:37:29
                         Evolution of English and German by Nick B. on  2013-10-29 12:42:00
                           Evolution of English and German by barry on  2013-10-30 04:39:06
                         Excitement mounts in the Dative by barry on  2013-10-30 05:01:34
                             Evolution of English and German by Uncle Jimbo on  2013-10-30 05:41:34
                               Evolution of English and German by Uncle Jimbo on  2013-10-30 05:50:12
                                 Evolution of English and German by Nick B. on  2013-10-30 05:58:08
                                   Evolution of English and German by Uncle Jimbo on  2013-10-30 20:03:42
                                     Evolution of English and German by Nick B. on  2013-10-31 01:14:22
                                       Non-standard German by Nick B. on  2013-10-31 01:18:38
                                       Evolution of English and German by FredW on  2013-10-31 05:01:57
                                       Evolution of English and German by Uncle Jimbo on  2013-10-31 06:11:15
                                         Evolution of English and German by Nick B. on  2013-10-31 06:04:43
                                           Evolution of English and German by TreinJan on  2013-10-31 09:07:35
                                             Evolution of English and German by Nick B. on  2013-10-31 12:48:41
                                         Evolution of English and German by barry on  2013-10-31 13:21:56
                                           Evolution of English and German by Uncle Jimbo on  2013-10-31 16:40:03