Re: German Spelling Reform (fwd)

Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:
>
> (This was meant for the list but my mailer sent it to Nicole,
> not like its usual habit, and I didn't pay attention)
>
> On Sun, 8 Aug 1999, nicole perrin wrote:
>
> (the new German spelling)
>
> > Verbs with nouns as prefixes will be split into two words and have the
> > noun capitalized:
> >         radfahren > Rad fahren
> >         autofahren > Auto fahren
>
> That seems to change the meaning, and on top of that, impoverish the
> lexicon: there will be no separate word for "to cycle" or "to drive"
> any more, just "to ride/drive a bike" and "to ride/drive a car". It's
> as if the Dutch word "fietsen" were to be replaced by "fiets rijden"
> (which, translated into German, is literally "Rad fahren").
I completely agree.  I always thought compounds like that were useful
(and cool) and some of the other spellings changes seem silly -- like
three l's in stilllegen.  At least to me, that will ALWAYS look like a
mistake.  Why force a spelling change?  Ah, I suppose I will just never
understand.  And since I really don't want to have to worry about
changing *my* German spelling when I'm only just learning it, I'll just
be stubborn like Irina.

Nicole

>
> It looks as bad as the new Dutch spelling, which I'm stubbornly
> refusing to use in any writing where I'm master of my own spelling.
> It creates illogicalities: "pannenkoek" (literally "panscake") which
> used to be "pannekoek" ("pancake") and ambiguities: "kerkenraad"
> ("churches' council", and it's used for that too, but the usual
> meaning is "church council" which used to be, logically,
> "kerkeraad").
>
> It's not as if the -n- is pronounced, either. This will probably make
> for a lot of spelling pronunciation, complete with pedants who insist
> that "you have to pronounce it, because it's written!" (I was raised
> by one, who couldn't believe that her spoken Dutch was, well, spoken
> Dutch even if she heard it on tape).
>
>    Irina
>
>             Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
>                      irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
>        http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
>     http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)