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the question is about the word "die Mietenden" in following sentence:

Der Druck auf die Mietenden steigt und steigt.

The sentence was found in M+W journal published by Swiss Mietverband. In particular, I was looking for a plural from der Mieter / die Mieterin, the results being as follows: die Mieter/-innen (as per standard DE rules).

However, I can't grasp why exactly die Mietende was used in here, why didn't the authors use "die Mieter*innen", for example? Could this word be used because of the style of the article (i.e. a Swiss-German word)?

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    Another interpretation: it refers to the ends of the rental periods (die Miet-Enden).
    – Björn Friedrich
    Feb 27 at 15:59
  • Und jetzt darf der Fragesteller (Fragestellende?) noch lernen, was ein Schenkelklopfer ist.
    – David Vogt
    Feb 27 at 17:05

2 Answers 2

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There are several different ways to apply "gender neutrality" rules to a sentence or term. The participle form ("Mietende") has been around since at least the 1990s, the *innen, _innen and :innen forms are much more recent and more blatantly advertising the cause. Different people prefer different forms, some also like variation.

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  • So it was a choice of the author. Thank you for explaining!
    – Eliina
    Feb 28 at 7:51
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die Mieter/-innen (as per standard DE rules)

There are no such "standard DE rules". In fact there are only people who want to change german grammatical rules, because German has a generisches Maskulinum: that means, i.e. "die Mechaniker" means mechanics of undefined (or various) gender and "der Mechaniker" is either a certain (male) mechanic or an abstract category (i.e. der Beruf des Mechanikers), whereas "die Mechanikerinnen" means female mechanics only.

The problem with "Mieter/-innen" and similar constructions is that many of the 349 recognized genders known up to now are excluded and only "male" and "female" is recognized.

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  • Thank you for your input. I will definitely dig into the question.
    – Eliina
    Feb 28 at 7:53
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    I don't understand the downvotes for this correct answer.
    – Olafant
    Mar 1 at 4:19
  • Weil es gibt ein generisches Maskulin nicht die Antwort auf die Frage, warum da Mietende steht, ist.
    – David Vogt
    Mar 1 at 8:02
  • @DavidVogt: OK, dann halt auf Deutsch: es gibt ein generisches Maskulin [sic!] war auch nicht die Antwort, sondern die Erläuterung zur Antwort, die im ersten Satz mit There are no such "standard DE rules". efolgte. Davor stand das Zitat aus der Frage, auf das sich die Antwort bezog. Ich erläutere das gerne für Dich nochmal explizit: die Frage in der Form, in der sie zum Antwortzeitpunkt gestellt war (mittlerweile wurde sie geändert), ging von falschen Voraussetzungen aus, nämlich dem Vorhandensein solcher Regeln.
    – bakunin
    Mar 2 at 7:52
  • “Der Mietende” ist maskulin, und auch generisches Maskulin. “Die Mietende” ist feminin. “Die Mietenden” ist Plural.
    – gnasher729
    Mar 9 at 18:36

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