German Language/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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== Misc ==
* What's with capitalizing the first letter of every noun?
** Can't give you a scientific answer (or an answer based on real linguistics), but there are many homonyms... Look at this nominal clause (written without any capitalization): "der junge, der floh und die stadt erreichte. Once you read the verb at the end, it's clear that this clause means "the boy who fled and reached the city". Before you reach the verb, however, it could also mean "the boy, the flea and the city", which might make a nice novel title. So imagine you first read 'floh' as the noun 'flea': once you reach the verb, you have to go back to read the clause again to get the actual meaning. Knowing about capitalization of nouns, you instinctively read it as a verb in a normal, capitalized German text that would look like this: "der Junge, der floh und die Stadt erreichte". [https://web.archive.org/web/20110514072029/http://zion-net-worx.de/iceweb/?p=52 It might even get naughtier than you wanted.] Oh btw, the feeling of having to go back in the sentence/clause to get the meaning once you reach the end can also be provoked by "The horse raced past the barn fell." in English!
*** Exactly. Germans can feel infinately confused when reading certain english sentences, and many students learning English will re-read lots of sentences because their meaning is not immeadiately clear to them. That leaves less room for [[Double Entendre]], but not having to puzzle out sentences is handy when reading something aloud (and having to get the stress right) or when sentences get convoluted.
** Also, there has been research into reading speed that showed that german capitalizing actually makes it easier to read fast, because your brain can categorize words easier that way.
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