Re: German question: Bundesgesundheitsamt

Hi

Weiben Wang <weibenw@...> writes:
> I have a niggly question about German grammar which I
> hope is appropriate to ask here.  I was asked why you
> add the S's in "Bundesgesundheitsamt." At first I
> thought they were some kind of genitive, ie. der Bund,
> des Bundes.
Well, they were genitives (as Daniel already proposed).  But then
(presumable by oversimplification) they were used also for the only
purpose of combining words.  And they are called Fugen-S (same as the
Norwegian term).

> But then Gesundheit is feminine, and
> doesn't take an "s", ie. die Gesundheit, der
> Gesundheit.
As far as I know, dialects in the south are more conservative to
preserve the genitive view, although a) I cannot come up with an
example and b) definitely no dialect is pure in using it only on
non-feminine words.  But I recall vaguely that in Austria and
Switzerland more compounds from feminine words lack the -s.

Whether to use -s- or not seems to be magic anyway.  People don't
agree on usage for many words (Schafk

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