Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 15:14:02 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Shaun Jurrens <shaun@shamz.net> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: german, anyone Message-ID: <20001029151402.I68266@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <20001028121159.K14117@atreides.freenix.no>; from shaun@shamz.net on Sat, Oct 28, 2000 at 12:11:59PM %2B0200 References: <20001028121159.K14117@atreides.freenix.no>
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On Saturday, 28 October 2000 at 12:11:59 +0200, Shaun Jurrens wrote:
> The title reads:
>
> "An open operating system does not just have advantages"
> (literally: an open operating system has not only advanteges)
>
> The text:
> "An open operating system can occassionally mutate. With Windows
> 2000, however, all of the services and (services|daemons)* come from
> one source (literally hand). That saves time and therefore money,
> really. More info under ....(bla.mircrosleaze.com)"
>
> The question as to whether "wirklich" is an adverb or an adjective is a
> matter of interpretation.
No, in this case there's no room for interpretation.
> There is no -ly suffix marker in German to make the distinction
> definitive in such cases,
Well, sort of. There's -lich, which is etymologically related, and
which tends to imply an adverb. The fact is that "wirklich" is one of
the few words in German which is used almost only as an adverb.
Although it can be used as an adjective, there are few examples.
After a lot of thinking, my wife finally came up with "Im wirklichen
Leben" ("in real life").
The real issue here, though, is that adjectives decline, and adverbs
don't. If it were an adjective, it would have to agree in case,
number and gender with the noun (Geld == money, accusative singular
neuter): "Das spart Zeit und somit wirklich*es* Geld". That would
sound really funny, though.
If they really wanted to say "real", they might have tried the word
for "real", "echt": "Das spart Zeit und somit echt Geld" (adverbial)
or "Das spart Zeit und somit echtes Geld" (adjectival). The former
sounds acceptable, the latter sounds as if you are saving real money
rather than fake money.
All that aside, the text of the ad sounds a bit funny anyway.
Greg
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