49
votes
German words with three of the same letters in a row?
Take an open source dictionary or a closed one, if you have access and it is in textform and a scripting language of your choice, like bash, and search yourself:
for c in {a..z}; do grep $c$c$c ~/lib/...
38
votes
Accepted
German words with three of the same letters in a row?
While there are no atomic words with three identical letters in a row, this pattern can sometimes be found in compounds. Compounds (the German word is Kompositum) are a combination of two or more ...
28
votes
Accepted
In native German words, is Q always followed by U, as in English?
In Latin, <qu> is a digraph used to represent the labiovelar stop [kʷ]. The spelling entered English via Latin and French. Native words with [kw] used to be spelled <cw>, e.g. cwēn "queen",...
26
votes
Accepted
How to translate old German (before 1920)
I'm not sure I understand the question. Every single one of your tokens merely deviates orthographically from current norms -- in other words, everything could be expressed exactly the same way today, ...
25
votes
Accepted
Warum schreibt man „nämlich“ nicht mit stummem „h“?
Eines der wichtigsten Prinzipien der deutschen Orthographie ist es, die einander entsprechenden Teile von verwandten Wörtern möglichst gleich zu schreiben (Stammprinzip). Nämlich wird also so ...
24
votes
Accepted
Konfirmandenblase vs. Konfirmantenblase
Die Schreibweise mit d ist richtig. Die falsche Variante mit t kommt vermutlich daher, dass Personen, die das Wort Konfirmand nicht kennen, aufgrund des Klanges eine Ähnlichkeit zu ...
20
votes
Accepted
Gothic script in which letters seem to be all mixed up
There is no substitution of letters in the text you posted.
You are looking at writing in a blackletter typeface (German: gebrochene Schrift, lit. broken font) possibly Fraktur. What you believe to ...
20
votes
In native German words, is Q always followed by U, as in English?
My Database of German words contains 2174 words with Q or q followed by u, but only 2 where after Q or q comes some other letter. There is no word that ends with q. The two exceptional words are:
...
17
votes
Have spelling reformers ever proposed rewriting "-ti-" as "-zi-" when it is pronounced that way?
Yes. That is actually a significant part of one of the recent spelling reforms:
Es werden neue Varianten eingeführt: Differenzial, Potenzial, potenziell, substanziell, parallel zu den schon ...
16
votes
German words with three of the same letters in a row?
Rules
If I didn’t miss something, the official regulations specify triple letters only implicitly, because they contain no rule for collapsing them into two, except for the three “exceptions” Drittel,...
16
votes
Accepted
Is the spelling 'chocolade' significant?
Here is a ngram for Schokolade/Chocolade and Chocolat:
You can see Chocolade (and Chokolade) is an old writing, it was the common writing before 1900. As a trade name you can give the impression of a ...
16
votes
Accepted
What transcription system from Japanese used ÿ?
This is "ij", not "ÿ" ("y" with diaeresis). It's just a peculiarity of the font used for this map that many letters connect to the following one (compare "i", "m", and "t" in "Iriomote"), so that "i" ...
16
votes
Accepted
Wie kann ich das "h" in Themperatur etablieren?
Deine Meinung ist einfach falsch:
"Thermo-" ist zurückzuführen auf das griechische "thermós (θερμός)", "Temperatur" dagegen auf das lateinische "temperātūra".
...
14
votes
Accepted
Warum wird »Richtung« auch großgeschrieben, wenn es als Präposition genutzt wird?
Es ist eine Präposition
Erst einmal: Es ist keine Apposition, sondern tatsächliche eine Präposition. Grund? Erweiterungsprobe. Wenn Richtung Hannover eine Apposition wäre wie Farbe Lila oder Kaiser ...
13
votes
Accepted
Why are some words spelled with “tz” if “z” already has the “ts” sound?
Tz indicates that the preceding vowel is short; z doesn’t (though this may still be the case for other reasons). Most other consonants are doubled in such a situation; z is different for historical ...
13
votes
When using the spelling alphabet, is it OK (or even preferable) to spell letters separately in cases where a combination of letters has its own word?
It's a dying skill, and it depends on who you're talking to on the phone. The average call center agent in customer service does not get a training that is the most professional in that aspect ...
12
votes
Words where changing “ß” to “ss” changes the meaning, e.g., “Maßen” to “Massen”
I am not aware of any such list, but I don't think it would be very long. Here are the few words that I can contribute:
Busse (plural to Bus) vs. Buße (penitence; in Switzerland also a fine, but ...
12
votes
Accepted
Why do Germans spell and pronounce "rocket" with an "a" (Rakete)?
DWDS says
Der dt. Ausdruck erscheint bald mit Vokalwechsel zu a (vielleicht nach der obital. Nebenform oder in Anlehnung an lautähnliches frühnhd. Ragget(t)en ‘Schlagnetz, Schläger beim Ballspiel’, ...
12
votes
Accepted
What's happening here? Dialect
Honestly I am pretty sure this is some kind of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) test website and the words are just some kind of hardly understandable gibberish. Take a look at the author, google him ...
11
votes
German words with three of the same letters in a row?
The German dictionary linked to by this answer can be searched with a simple regex (for example using Notepad++).
The dictionary file returned 3637 hits for the regex search (.)\1{2,}. Unfortunately, ...
11
votes
Accepted
Verb conjugation, isst oder ißt?
The question about »ss« or »ß« is about the »Rechtschreibreform«
Many words, that used to be written with »ß« are written with »ss« since 1996. Now (since 1996) it depends on the length of the spoken ...
11
votes
Accepted
Neue Schreibweise von Komposita
Meine Vermutung:
Viele Textverarbeitungsprogramme haben Probleme, zusammengesetzte Wörter in der Rechtschreibprüfung zu analysieren und markieren sie. Schreibt der unsichere Benutzer dann zwei ...
11
votes
Neue Schreibweise von Komposita
Es müsste Studententypen oder Studenten-Typen heißen. Oder eben umschrieben werden als Typen von Studenten. Auch Studenten, die jeder kennt wäre richtig.
Deppenleerzeichen sind nicht korrekt. Es ...
11
votes
Spelling of Strudel in German: Strudel or Strüdel?
Some English speaking people who don't speak German don't understand the meaning of the dots on a, o and u, but they can see, that those dots are typical for German language. German language also ...
11
votes
Accepted
How did the y get lost in German writing?
The reason y was lost is standardisation. For instance, Ebert/Reichmann/Solms/Wegera, Frühneuhochdeutsche Grammatik, list the following variants under the heading ei / ai (§ L 27):
<ei, ey, eÿ, ...
10
votes
Accepted
Hyphen in "Samstagen, Sonn- und Feiertagen"
It actually feels equally weird to think of
Mon- bis Freitag
I can’t remember ever seeing that construction, it is usually
Montag bis Freitag
Although that has more characters. This leads me ...
10
votes
Accepted
Wo steht, dass man im Deutschen Wörter im Normalfall kleinschreibt?
Welche der vielen Regeln, die der Rechtschreibrat herausgegeben hat, könnte diese Behauptung widerlegen?
Zwei Ansätze:
Die Vorbemerkung des Abschnitts zur Groß- und Kleinschreibung (Kapitel D, ...
10
votes
Warum wird »Richtung« auch großgeschrieben, wenn es als Präposition genutzt wird?
Ich würde bei "Richtung Osten" ganz einfach annehmen, dass hier ein Substantiv zur näheren Bestimmung eines anderen Substantivs dient - so wie in
die Farbe Lila
der Planet Erde
der Kaiser ...
10
votes
Accepted
When to use a 'k' and when to use a 'c'?
You were correct with your assumption, German almost never uses 'c' for a 'k' sound.
But German has adopted many words from other languages and often keeps their writing:
Café
Captain
Ciao
City
Code
....
10
votes
Was ist der Zweck des großen Eszetts?
Wenn du in Großbuchstaben schreiben musst. Heißt jemand Meißner oder Meissner wenn da MEISSNER steht?
Für Namen wurde es auch vor allem eingeführt. Da nach alten Regeln hier immer ein großes SS ...
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Related Tags
spelling × 301compound × 30
history × 26
capitalization × 24
reformed-orthography × 22
pronunciation × 19
etymology × 14
eszett × 13
numbers × 12
noun × 12
hyphen × 10
adjective × 10
verb × 9
nominalization × 8
translation × 7
usage × 7
umlaut × 7
proper-noun × 7
word-usage × 6
grammar × 6
comma × 6
punctuation × 6
anglicism × 6
typography × 6
person-names × 5