same ;_;
Also, I feel like the first sentence should be "the couple has been working..."
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You'd never say "Das Paar haben viel gearbeitet" or something like that. It's a singular word with a plural meaning; doesn't mean that you use a plural verb for it though, like.. nah, it just seems wrong.
And it's clearly "hat" in this case cause it's referring to "die Hälfte"; that's nothing special or unusual, people just seem to get it wrong all the time o.o
Short form: it's basically just people not knowing their grammar.
So.. you're German? ^^
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Bah, give German a few more decades, and the people getting it wrong will be looking at us funny, smiling at our quaint old-fashioned speech and writing their own textbooks in the dust of our half-finished poetry.
I'm not German, though. I don't really speak German either, I just thought it could be fun to think up a plausible example of synesis in a highly fusional language. ;þ The 'plausible' part may require a little bit of stretching, but I'm not the one to fat-shame the poor little thing.
The French language seem to be rather on board with this usage, though. 'La moitié des joueurs veut/veulent participer' works fine either way, and most textbooks agree that the first option stresses the group whilst the second option stresses individuals. The same goes for Russian, even though the verbs also have to agree with the nouns in gender, in addition to number: 'Половина игроков никогда не отдыхали/отдыхала' - and some argue that the plural verb sounds more natural in these cases, despite being in twice the formal disagreement with the noun.
And when people ultimately get hold of the nouns like 'die Hälfte' and 'die Mehrheit', they'll come for the sacred unities of 'die Mannschaft' and 'das Paar', and nothing will ever be the same any more. Or maybe everything will, I'm confused. The point is, as wise Brian taught us, 'we're all individuals, we're all different. I'm n... Shhh!'
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Well, gotta be honest here, I have no idea about languages other than English (or I at least claim to know it pretty well), and German (well, and Latin, but that's a whole other story), so I have no idea about French or Russian at all. All I'm saying is that at least in German the correct thing would be to use a singular verb with nouns like that; though most people get it wrong anyway. Sometimes being a grammar nazi is really frustrating. Having said that, German is quite a difficult language and hardly anyone speaks it perfectly anyway (Germans included) which, quite frankly, is pretty sad in my opinion.
What I'm trying to say is that for me, as someone who's used to those German rules of grammar regarding this topic, it kinda hurts to see things like "the couple have been" or "the government are" because it just seems so terribly, terribly wrong. I get why people are using plural verbs sometimes for those nouns but having the German rules of grammar in mind, it just seems so very wrong (because it is / would be wrong in German).
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Yeah, I wrote my original message with that exact conjecture in mind - that the English phrase might look especially wrong to the native speakers of those languages that employ some kind of additional grammar titbits to strengthen the bond between the noun and the verb. Saying 'the couple are' or something to that effect would be flat out wrong in French and Russian as well. I wonder if it stays that way. ;j
After all, like in English, 'ein paar Leute' is already plural in German (but not in Russian, for example). When did this happen? Who was responsible? Were they properly hanged? Both of them?
Look on the bright side (of life) though: the fact that there are still socially accepted (but markedly incorrect) usage patterns in German makes for a nifty tool for guessing someone's level of education, conversational capabilities, self-awareness, and respect for cultural heritage. That's four personal traits contained in one carelessly chosen verb! When the government decides that the language is too difficult and everything is correct, then being a grammar nazi becomes both easy and impossible and also no fun at all. ;(
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Well, there is a difference between "Paar" and "paar". The first one literally means two - and then in the figurative sense also "a couple" (as in "two lovers"); "paar" on the other hand literally means "some", "a few" or "a couple of" (as in "a few of something").
And I guess, "Leute" was just established as a word that's only plural, same as in English with "people".
I'll give you that; that is true. it just honestly makes me sad that teenagers nowadays hardly ever know the difference between "dass" and "das" (no idea how much you actually know the language / if you know it at all) and I don't know.. I just think it's.. sad. English is so much simpler when it comes to grammar, I'd say. Especially when it comes to commas; I never really understood when to put commas apart from enumerations because it seems like there are no firm rules about this. In German on the other hand, there are tons and tons of rules about this and you can have sentences with like, dozens of commas.
Random example I just found on the Internet:
Wer glaubt, es sei schwierig, einen Satz zu formulieren, der hundert, zweihundert oder auch dreihundert Kommas enthält, der irrt und unterschätzt die Variationsmöglichkeiten, Spielpotenziale und syntaktischen Angebote zu allerlei Allotria, welche die Sprache, und das gilt nicht nur für die deutsche, vermute ich, enthält.
But I guess, that was kinda off topic. I'm just such a nerd when it comes to languages.
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Once something starting with 'ein' becomes plural, there's no turning back. They say they have cookies! ;þ
Curiously, I do know the difference between 'dass' and 'das' - thanks to Buttgereit's Der Todesking, which ends on the line, 'Das ist der Todesking. Er macht, dass die Menchen nicht mehr leben wollen' (damn, I hope I'm not misspelling all the other words, that would be quite embarrassing). Come to think of it, it might be somewhat similar to the their/there/they're disaster in the anglophone world. One's eyes can only bleed so much!
I feel you about the lax comma usage in English; I've even taken to abusing the unnecessary Oxford comma in order to manage my daily comma deficiency - much to the chagrin of my SMS conversants in the days of yore. But hey, anything to postpone a full stop as long as possible!
Thank you for ranting along, it's been a pleasure. ;j
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Well, I'm not sure if that's really the case, but if you say so :')
It's not quite that easy, or rather that's not entirely what I meant but close enough! And let's just imagine that the 's' in 'Menschen' wasn't missing ;) But apart from that it was just fine, yeah.
Oh, hell yeah. Or the whole your/you're situation. The "das" problem doesn't exist in English though because in English both versions of "das" are simply "that", so there's (almost) no way you could get it wrong in English... but anyway, I'll spare you the examples :D
Hahaha, now that's cool! Honestly, I feel so much better when I have the chance to use commas in my sentences. It gives me some kind of weird satisfaction. It's so much fun to write in multi-clause sentences, I love it! The English language has more ways of saying things though and that often makes constructing sentences so much easier. Like, you can say something in only, I don't know, 7 words, whereas in German you'd need like.. 20 or whatever.
Yeah, I really enjoy this, to be honest. it is kinda weird that we're talking about something like this on a gaming forum though, ha!
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Bump for frustration because of Q1 ;_;
Edit: Nvm..
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Still in progress...
Thanks for making this kind of puzzle again ^^
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Hi!
Given that the previous one was met with approval I decided to have a go at another one of these. This time the answers are not picked randomly as it happened before.
Also, I will announce the giveaway so that some of You won't be disappointed after struggling with the puzzle. This game is: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Directors Cut. I've played it and I enjoyed it much, hope the winner will too.
http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/U9ewVjZr
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