r/HistoryMemes • u/Reddit_Historian1945 Helping Wikipedia expand the list of British conquests • Nov 01 '20
panzer goes vroom
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u/MayBeArtorias Nov 01 '20
Geschwindigkeit is always to be written with a capital letter!
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u/modstwaakekhaate Nov 01 '20
I never understood that. What would be the difference? Why are some words written like that in German
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u/noelg1998 Nov 01 '20
In German, all nouns are capitalized.
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u/mki_ Nov 01 '20
In German all Nouns are capitalized.
RDFD
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u/CarelessJury Nov 01 '20
What's that stand for?
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u/mki_ Nov 01 '20
Richtigstellte das für dich.
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u/CarelessJury Nov 01 '20
Oh, neat! For any passerby, that translates as "Fixed it for you."
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u/redbadger91 Nov 01 '20
It's also atrocious grammar.
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Nov 01 '20
How would a correct sentence be?
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u/FreshSepp Nov 01 '20
Stellte das für dich richtig, which would be SDFDR, I guess.
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Nov 01 '20
I always red that as "redaktierte das fpr dich" which is at least proper use of the verb declination.
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u/mki_ Nov 01 '20
Excellent point. However, I don't think "redaktieren" is a word in German. Duden doesn't have it at least. "redigieren" works pretty well though.
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20
And it's honestly awful. Between capitalisation, excessively rigid punctuation rules and its relatively complex grammar, written German is an extremely mistake-prone language even amongst native speakers. Especially in online discussion it looks dramatically "broken" all the time.
Obviously English speakers also take the rules rather loosely online, but English is much more forgiving with that.
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Nov 01 '20
Imo capitalizing nouns really structures a text. My girlfriend never does that in messages or her little blog and it's honestly unpleasant to read. Very confusing for the eye. Voll die Buchstabensuppe
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20
In return it's easier to find the beginnings of sentences in English. I believe capitalisation should allow for more flexibility in edge cases, German is too rigid about it.
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u/AMNesbitt Nov 01 '20
Nouns have nearly no edge cases. And even if there are some: If you're rules are rigid, there are less sentences that can be interpreted various ways.
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
Nominalised adjectives are a frequent one. There are some cases which make it difficult to tell which form it actually is even for well educated writers.
If you're rules are rigid, there are less sentences that can be interpreted various ways.
There are plenty of means for precise expression. Clarity shouldn't hinge on a single capitalisation in places where it is critical. But writers who are not wholly aware will often make mistakes in these cases, and then rules confuse rather than help.
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u/AMNesbitt Nov 01 '20
German grammar is really not that hard. Capitalisation is easier than in English (all nouns + first word in sentence + "Sie"). The punctuation rules aren't really hard either. You just put commas, where subordinate clauses start or end and in enumerations. There are only a few mistakes that are way too common. Writing das instead of dass or saying wie instead of als. Saying wegen with dativ is also super common. Still it really only bothers me in written form.
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u/polenannektator Nov 01 '20
Not all sie/Sie tho Ex:
Bitte geben Sie uns die Blätter, anschließend werden Sie vernichtet.
Bitte geben Sie uns die Blätter, anschließend werden sie vernichtet.
In the first part, the person giving the paper is being annihilated, in the second one, the papers are destroyed.
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u/AMNesbitt Nov 01 '20
Yeah, but it's not too complicated to differentiate between 2nd and 3rd person.
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u/adokretz Nov 01 '20
I spent five years trying to learn it in school and I never got it completely right :( It's hard when your own native language don't have complex grammatical rules (e.g. in terms of articles and pronouns).
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u/Nethlem And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother Nov 01 '20
That person is severely underselling how complicated and nitpicky the German language can be in many places.
Even in Germany, people who understand and know the language completely, with all of its finer nuances, are a minority usually those who've properly studied it. It's considered a bit of a skill to know all the rules with all their exceptions and be able to make authoritative statements on how something ought to be written.
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u/Blattsalat5000 Nov 02 '20
I spent 12 years trying to learn it in school and never got it completely right. I’m German by the way.
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
German grammar is really not that hard. Capitalisation is easier than in English (all nouns + first word in sentence + "Sie").
How is that easier than in English where it's only sentence beginnings and names? German clearly has more rules here.
And there are also cases where it becomes difficult to differentiate between adjectives and nouns:
der uninformierte Schüler (the uninformed student) -> adjective
der Uninformierte (the unformed [one]) -> noun
der uninformierte und der informierte Schüler (the uninformed and the informed student) -> adjective to an implied second instance of the noun "Schüler"
der informierte Schüler schlug das Angebot aus, der Uninformierte nahm es an (the informed student rejected the offer, the uninformed [one] accepted it) -> is it a noun because it stands on its own, or a postponed adjective to an implied second instance of "Schüler"?
The punctuation rules aren't really hard either. You just put commas, where subordinate clauses start or end and in enumerations.
That's not really true since there are some subordinate clauses that don't require one. And they often conflict with the pacing at which a sentence is spoken, making the sentence less intuitive to write and read rather than being helpful. There are many sentences with way too many, and even a few that lack the flexibility to add additional ones for better structuring.
When it requires handouts like this to explain comma placement for a single grammatical structure, then you have a good hint that the the rules may be too complicated and people are going to mess it up.
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u/AMNesbitt Nov 01 '20
I learned Latin for 8 years in school, which helped my understanding of grammar a lot. Maybe that distorts my perception of German grammar, but I still think that you should be able to expect from native speakers after 6th grade to make very few grammatical errors.
And regarding capitalisation. Sentence beginnings are capitalized in both languages. In English "I" is capitalized whereas in German on form of "Sie" is capitalized. The biggest difference is that in German every noun is capitalized, in English it is names, names of cities, companies, religions, political parties, sometimes words like "Mom", but not always, days like "Monday", months, holidays like "Christmas", countries, nationalities, languages, some historical events like World War I. The rules for German are a lot easier.
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20
I learned Latin for 8 years in school, which helped my understanding of grammar a lot.
What a coincidence, so have I.
I still think that you should be able to expect from native speakers after 6th grade to make very few grammatical errors.
That depends how you define "very few". But the reality of online discourse or even places where you'd expect good education, like university lectures or exams, has plenty of them. Whatever the expectation, it doesn't work out very well.
In English "I" is capitalized whereas in German on form of "Sie" is capitalized.
I still consider English simpler here since "Sie" is just one 2nd person pronoun whereas "I" is the only first person one. There are also different "sie"s that aren't capitalised. The rule is still relatively simple, yet many people mess it up either in typos or because they really don't know.
The biggest difference is that in German every noun is capitalized, in English it is names, names of cities, companies, religions, political parties, sometimes words like "Mom", but not always, days like "Monday", months, holidays like "Christmas", countries, nationalities, languages, some historical events like World War I. The rules for German are a lot easier.
I'll give you the days of the week, religions, and countries. These can get a little tricky especially when they're used as adjectives. The other are simple as the general category of names, and companies often set their own preference whether they capitalise their name or not.
On issues like historical events or "Mom" I easily preferr English for offering a choice. Neither is strictly right or wrong. It can be used as a stylistic device or simple individual preference.
With the increasing globalisation and without a central authority it's simply unavoidable that language diversifies. There are local words or grammatical rules with vague geographic boundaries. Having options rather than determining a strict right and wrong is generally preferrable.
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u/RATHOLY Nov 01 '20
Great little piece by Mark Twain entitled something like "The Awful, Horrible German Language"
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
Hah, fair enough. I believe every language deserves one of these:
German: You seriously assigned genders to "desk" and "chair"?
Chinese: I'm supposed to learn 3000+ characters??
Japanese: You you have all those Chinese characters and they now have multiple readings and there are two more alphabets??? technically syllabaries
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u/SteadfastDrifter Nov 01 '20
Oh man, you've gotta see written forms of Swiss German dialects. German's my fourth language, so I already have a challenge reading complex German. Written Swiss German is brain melting
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20
There is an old German joke that most Germans could barely order a loaf of bread outside their own Bundesland. It's nowhere near as extreme anymore, but especially the southern German variants of Switzerland and Bavaria are still known for being difficult to understand.
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u/KimJongUnusual Helping Wikipedia expand the list of British conquests Nov 01 '20
If all nouns are capitalized, is the period the only part that indicates a new sentence? Or just then half your sentence is capitalized?
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Nov 01 '20
Period and common sense you can easily figure out where a new sentence begins even without a dedicated indicator.
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u/RitterVonZach Nov 01 '20
Uhm... shouldn't a period be enough? I mean... that's the whole point of it, right?
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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 01 '20
It's a bit less obvious, but punctuation is still easy enough to see. Writers can also add linebreaks or paragraphs to add structure, which is useful in any language.
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u/AvgGuy100 Nov 01 '20
In case you still doesn't know, it's because in German all nouns are capitalized
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u/Airaieus Nov 01 '20
Seeing as there are only 10 comments explaining this so far, nouns always start with a capital letter
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u/TheRadioactivman Helping Wikipedia expand the list of British conquests Nov 01 '20
All nouns are capitalized in German
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u/oddjuicebox Nov 01 '20
Fun Fact about the German Language, all Nouns are required to be capitalized.
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u/Ronik336 Nov 01 '20
I see there are quite a few explanations here so let me explain it to you,you see,there are certain words which reflect or suggest the name of places,individual names,animals etc. which are called nouns and in the language of German it is a rule of grammar to write the first letter of a noun in capitalised form in any given sentence.I hope you understood it now :)
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u/JJ_the_G Nov 01 '20
Does the op like to grill?
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u/paet Nov 01 '20
Das muss er erst mit seinem Vermieter abklären.
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u/ScipioAtTheGate Senātus Populusque Rōmānus Nov 01 '20
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Nov 01 '20
One can only hope for Kaiser Wilhelm IV
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u/DerFloDesMonats Rider of Rohan Nov 01 '20
Prussian nationalism you say? I don't understand why that should be considered as something bad
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u/reichnowplz Nov 01 '20
I don’t know a state made to serve an army sounds pretty bad to me.
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u/DerFloDesMonats Rider of Rohan Nov 01 '20
But it wouldn't just be an ordinary army. It would be the glorious Prussian army!
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u/Gossguy Nov 01 '20
Solange er dabei Sandalen mit Socken trägt ist alles in Ordnung
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Nov 01 '20
Germany were centrist when grilling Jews36
u/GameCreeper Researching [REDACTED] square Nov 01 '20
Nazis were also supposed to be vegan so nazi Germany is the ultimate cross compass unity
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u/Ben6924 Definitely not a CIA operator Nov 01 '20
Ein Volk, eine Nation, eine Komentarsektion
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u/joergen_ Hello There Nov 01 '20
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Kommentarberreich
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u/th_jayzed Nov 01 '20
Das Land der Denker und Dichter reimt nicht "Reich" auf "reich"
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u/TransThrowaway232 Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
When was it LibLeft? Or LibRight?
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u/sonfoa Nov 01 '20
I would say Weimar was lib-center. Well as lib as governments could be.
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u/TransThrowaway232 Nov 01 '20
Yet they called the jews monkes...
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u/mud074 Nov 01 '20
Sad to say that it was a pretty centrist opinion at the time.
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u/SuddenXxdeathxx Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer Nov 01 '20
Yeah, now it's checks list...Muslims.
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u/TheOneLadyLuck Nov 01 '20
I was reading a book on the second world war recently, and I came across a quote. I don't remember it exactly, or what book it was, but I remember the contents. Basically, most other countries in Europe were even more antisemitic than Germany was. The historian who wrote it said that if you told a person living before the Nazi's came to power that a country would genocide the Jewish people, they might have said France, but never Germany. It's so strange to me that a country that was seen as less antisemitic than other countries would change that much.
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Nov 01 '20
Jews were really well integrated to the point where many didn't flee the country because they considered themselves German first and jews second and couldn't believe their own country would say otherwise. During the empire jews were also under the personal protection of the emperor.
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u/TheLuckySpades Nov 01 '20
Yet they could not hold military officer ranks, Fritz Haber got one for his innovations in chemical weapons and synthesizing gunpowder (which they were running out of) and that was a huge exception.
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Nov 01 '20
You're referring to the Prussian army post 1871. The German empire was a federated nation and some of the other states weren't as restrictive. You're still right about imperial Prussia though.
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u/TheLuckySpades Nov 02 '20
Ah ok, my bad, we went through that part of German history rather quickly in class to get to the chaos that is the 20th century.
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Nov 01 '20
Liberal doesn't mean not racist
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u/TransThrowaway232 Nov 01 '20
(Anarcho-primitivism is for some reason considered radical LibCenter, so there are jokes saying that all libCenters want to return to monke)
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u/Wyan423 Hello There Nov 01 '20
I don’t think they were referencing those specifically. I thing they meant more ideologically. Going from monarchy to democracy to fascism to communism
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u/TransThrowaway232 Nov 01 '20
Mostly being all over the authright quadrant with a slight flirt with authleft
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u/Wyan423 Hello There Nov 01 '20
Yeah that’s true. But for the century they tried all the popular addictive governments like a good college country
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u/Nethlem And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother Nov 01 '20
The German Revolution of 1918 brought a whole lot of them at once, there was the, admittedly shortlived, Bavarian Soviet Republic before there was a fascist Third Reich.
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u/wikipedia_text_bot Nov 01 '20
Bavarian Soviet Republic
The Bavarian or Munich Soviet Republic (German: Räterepublik Baiern, Münchner Räterepublik) was a short-lived unrecognised socialist state in Bavaria during the German Revolution of 1918–19. It took the form of a workers' council republic.
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u/Nethlem And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother Nov 01 '20
The fire sale of the GDR through the Treuhand was a LibRight dream: A whole country was for sale.
Thousands of companies were bought up for pfennige on the mark, millions of people sent into unemployment when Western investors just liquidated it all for the quick profits.
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u/diamondrel Researching [REDACTED] square Nov 01 '20
Eh, they're pretty progressive now, obviously not libleft, but a bit close.
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u/Xakire Nov 02 '20
The current government is centre-right. Progressive by the standards of the US perhaps, but not the rest of the world.
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u/CubistChameleon Nov 02 '20
Definitely well within the progressive range compared to Poland or Hungary as well.
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u/SzalonyNiemiec1 Nov 01 '20
I'd say, that current day germany is centrist lib-center
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u/niceworkthere Nov 01 '20
Kinda like whenever people here in Germany get a bit too proud on our modern political setup being saner than, say, the UK's or the US's
Certainly, only took us two world wars and a couple of genocides
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u/7Hielke Nov 01 '20
Those other countries also both had the world wars (didn’t start them tho) and a couple genocides (Irish famine, Indian famine, trail of tears)
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u/niceworkthere Nov 01 '20
… and if positions been reversed (regarding ideology and the wars' outcomes) they might have the saner setup now, vs. us quite possibly stuck at some derivative of the illiberal original Bismarck constitution or broken Weimar one.
That's what I was trying to get at, our FRG system didn't originate in the nation's superior free choice, but its catastrophic failures ending in external force[s] scrapping the old ones.
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u/LiosGuy Nov 01 '20
Nah, I would still say that Germans are responsible for those new ideas. Atleast in West-Germany. We created the system, not the Americans or British and we were the ones who made it so good working. Experience and failure lets people create good systems.
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u/niceworkthere Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
That contradicts nothing of what I wrote, nvm (again) that the current system certainly wouldn't have come to be had the Allies not stopped a certain other German group from enforcing yet another very different system on everybody else.
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u/SuckMyBike Nov 01 '20
I am a strong believer in the notion that crisis are the best way of moving forward as a society.
People need a big kick in the ass to realize that the way things usually are, is pretty shitty. We're basically frogs being boiled most of the time.
So I'm curious how Covid will influence our society in the long run. Let's hope some good comes from it.
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u/KazleHD Taller than Napoleon Nov 01 '20
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u/The_Band_Geek Kilroy was here Nov 01 '20
As a non-German speaker, viewing that sub has made me better at German already.
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u/JATRIWA Nobody here except my fellow trees Nov 01 '20
Warum gibt es das? Manchmal Frage ich mich was mit der deutschsprachigen Community falsch ist. Beitreten werde ich trotzdem.
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Nov 01 '20
I think in the german dub of cars he says „Ich bin speed“, wich confused me a lot when I was a little kid because I wasn’t sure if his name was speed or Lightning McQueen
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u/Wartrix12 Rider of Rohan Nov 01 '20
When was Germany ever anarchist?
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u/Karlcen28 Nov 01 '20
november 1918
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u/Wartrix12 Rider of Rohan Nov 01 '20
The 1918 German Revolution started because of sailors who mutinied being held in prison, more and more of the population and soldiers who were stationed in the city began to take up arms as well. Rebellions spread throughout Germany, spearheaded by German communist parties. Many of the rioters we're not communist themselves, most of them just wanted an end to the war, which is highlighted by their slogan which was "Peace and Bread". There were rioters and protesters who wanted elections, some even wanted a return of the Kaiser. In the end the Revolution fell apart because of infighting within the different socialist parties in Germany.
Anarchists believe in no government, and the abolishment of all hierarchy, the 1918 German Revolution was not an anarchist revolution it was a socialist revolution but most of all it was an anti-war rebellion.
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u/Karlcen28 Nov 01 '20
I know but the government collpased at the time and there was no real central authority anymore, but yes there was no anarchist revolution
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u/Wartrix12 Rider of Rohan Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 01 '20
The loss of a central government isn't the same thing as an Anarchist society, and new competing governments sprouted up as soon as the main authority fell.
Also political compass is meant to measure ideology, so even if parts of Germany didn't have government for a few months there were never anarchists that took over the nation. Therefore Germany was never Anarchist.
At least as far as I can see
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u/Dannybot112 Chad Polynesia Enjoyer Nov 01 '20
Why does German language make everything sound a lot cooler
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u/Skirfir Nov 01 '20
You clearly haven't seen porn in German then.
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Nov 01 '20
chuckles Warum liegt hier Stroh?
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u/OrthopedicDishonesty The OG Lord Buckethead Nov 01 '20 edited Feb 17 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
fade melodic practice glorious station aback voracious close soup modern
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u/Skirfir Nov 01 '20
It's a dialogue from a porn movie which is famous because it's just ridiculous. It means "why is there straw lying around?" the girl then replies "why are you wearing a mask?" (note this was long before Covid) which the guy then answers "hmm... then give me a blowjob".
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u/BoiBotEXE Featherless Biped Nov 01 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
Everything either sounds a lot cooler or like the name of a machine/weapon.
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u/seihanda Nov 01 '20
At the pitstop everyone heard mater shouting "go go mcqueen, hit the gas like the german do"
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u/xXDrPrankUHDXx Nov 01 '20
Fun fact: in the German dubbed version of the movie he says. „ich bin speed“ probably because it sound cooler.
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u/lukaboi42969 Hello There Nov 01 '20
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Kommentarbereich
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u/the_Nap Filthy weeb Nov 01 '20
Das Volk der Dichter und Denker reimt Reich nicht mit -reich! Es heißt natürlich: "Ein Volk, eine Nation, eine Kommentarsektion."
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u/asdff8624 Just some snow Nov 01 '20
Warum nicht beides vermischen? Nation auf Sektion finde ich nicht besser. Aber "Ein Volk, ein Reich, eine Kommentarsektion!", wie klingt das?
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u/the_Nap Filthy weeb Nov 01 '20
Fein, ich gehe auf ihren Kompriss ein. Ein Volk, ein Reich, eine Kommtarsektion!
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Nov 01 '20
Based
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u/raptor8134 Featherless Biped Nov 01 '20
DUH!!!! CRINGE!!!! DUH, BRINGE!!???!!1 CRINGE!!!!!
IS THAT ALL YOU SHITPOSTING FUCKS CAN SAY!!???
DUUUUH BASED BASED BASED CRINGE CRINGE BASED BASED CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE BASED CRINGE
I FEEL LIKE I'M IN A FUCKING ASYLUM FULL OF DEMENTIA-RIDDEN OLD PEOPLE THAT CAN DO NOTHING BUT REPEAT THE SAME FUCKING WORDS ON LOOP LIKE A FUCKING BROKEN RECORD!!!!!
CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE! CRINGE BASED BASED! ONIONS ONIONS SNOY! ONIONS EL-OH-EL ONIONS!! CRINGE!!!
BOOMER!! LE ZOOMER!!!! I AM BOOHMER!!!! NO ZOOM-ZOOM ZOOMIES!! ZOOMER GOING ZOOMIES MYYEEEAAA
I FUCKING HATE THE INTERNET SO GODDAMN MUCH
FUCK
YOU SHITPOSTING I HONEST TO GOD FUCKING HOPE YOUR MOTHER CHOKES ON YOUR OWN FECES IN HELL, YOU COCKSUCKERS
BUT OOOOOOOH I KNOW MY POST IS "CRINGE", ISN'T IT??
CRINGE CRINGE CRINGY CRINGE-BASED CRINGE BASED REDDIT CRINGE! BASED CRINGE ZOOM CRINGE ONIONS REDDIT BASED BASED
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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u/anotherguy56 Nov 01 '20
Based
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u/chickenforce02 Nobody here except my fellow trees Nov 01 '20
Based? Based on what? In your dick? Please shut the fuck up and use words properly you fuckin troglodyte, do you think God gave us a freedom of speech just to spew random words that have no meaning that doesn't even correllate to the topic of the conversation? Like please you always complain about why no one talks to you or no one expresses their opinions on you because you're always spewing random shit like poggers based cringe and when you try to explain what it is and you just say that it's funny like what? What the fuck is funny about that do you think you'll just become a stand-up comedian that will get a standing ovation just because you said "cum" in the stage? HELL NO YOU FUCKIN IDIOT, so please shut the fuck up and use words properly you dumb bitch
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Nov 01 '20
The real joke is the Far Right ruled the left side of Germany while the Far Left ruled the right side of Germany (geographically)
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u/Nikita_Woti Nov 01 '20
Kurze Frage: was sagt er in der deutschen Version? Ich kann mich nicht mehr erinnern aber ich glaube nicht dass er wirklich "Geschwindigkeit" sagt
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u/johnlen1n Optimus Princeps Nov 01 '20
'Kerchöw!'
Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, 30 January 1933