Talk:Stinkkatze

Range

@-sche An IP intent to right historical wrongs claimed that this word has/had a much larger range in the United States spanning basically the Midwest and a little further south and east (diff). The alternative forms do not seem well attested at all, but this word does seem to once have had a considerably larger range (California, Wisconsin, Illinois/Indiana, New York [1], Missouri, Tennessee, Colorado, Ohio, probably other states as well), though most of the recent mentions are specifically about Texas. Do you have a preference for dealing with this in a particular way? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:50, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I think your addition of the "US" label was good based on those cites, and so is the whole "obsolete in other parts of the US" AFAICT. WP lists some still-published German-language papers; I tried to peruse them but didn't spot Stinkkatze in any of them.

papers

• Amerika Woche (an originally(?) NY paper which absorbed DC's Washington Journal in 1999): uses Stinktier in a 2017 article and Stinkkatze nowhere AFAICT. (Even if we only found the word in a not-durable web edition, it could help inform our labelling.)
• New Yorker Staats-Zeitung: ?
• NY's Der Volksfreund was supposedly active until 2009; supposedly The German Citizen maintains its archives, but I didn't spot either Stink- word using their site search function.
• Maryland's (Täglicher) Baltimore Correspondent was active until the 1970s: I found Stinkkatze in a 23 December 1889 edition, but haven't found any recent archives to search.

I think this is the same user who edited bub; their contributions seem to be in good faith, and to contain a core of useful information, despite the excess verbiage and Great Wrongs attitude; hopefully they'll get the hang of our formatting and attestation requirements with time. I'm excited we're starting to cover American German, thanks to you (and, however imperfectly, this IP). - -sche (discuss) 17:49, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree with your point about obsolescence (diff). The current categorisation is probably a bit arbitrary anyway. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:24, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

RFC

• "Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen" was published in Göttingen, Germany, which wasn't part of the USA back in 1783. The place should be added and label has to be checked... [2] (from "Neumann aus Prachatitz in Böhmen" written in "Erie County Northbusch" published in "Speyer"), [3] (written in "Freeport in Nordillinois" published in "Zürich") also show that label needs to be checked.
• There's no need for sic-ing in "Viverra Putorius[sic]" as it's not a mistake or uncommon. Otherweise blos, todt, unspaced and big "—" and th-spellings if there were any should be sic-ed as well.
• "====Declension====" and "{{de-decl-noun-f|n}}" shall be added. — This unsigned comment was added by Negel Growl (talk • contribs).

  Re second bullet point: It is indeed a mistake, as the specific epithet should not be capitalised. Re third bullet point: it's a wiki, you can add it! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:44, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

  No, it's no mistake, it's just your (and whomever's) lack of knowledge to think so.
  No, I can't add or correct the page, hence RFC. --Negel Growl (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

  You would do better by toning down the arrogance (and you remain wrong). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

  I have added the declension, under the assumption that it is identical to continental German. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I didn't add the full declension because I wasn't sure what forms were attested nor whether US German had differences with Standard German in declension.

The statement about Göttingen is a non sequitur. The writer could well have been living in America or perhaps used a North American German word. The fact remains that most of the uses for Stinkkatze are in the relatively small body of German texts from the United States, whereas it is extremely rare in European German compared to Stinkt(h)ier. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:48, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

How about reading more of the text(s)? Should be quite obvious that the grammar is the same. (Examples from the Göttinger text: "die afrikanische Gastfreyheit", "Auf der ganzen Reise", "giftigen Schlangen".) --Negel Growl (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Not sure to what specific point you are replying now, but the grammatical differences between 19th century American German (excluding Pennsylvania German) and European German weren't all that large (though I'm less sure about declension), reducing the usefulness of grammatical analysis for determining the place of origin; whereas the analysis of the grammar in a single publication isn't particularly helpful for telling how the word is generally declined (but see the response above). ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Standard German in the US or any other place was the same as in Europe. If there are any regional deviances these are more likely to be due to the origin of the speaker in Europe than any particular colonial thing. -- Pennsylvania German is a dialect derived from Palatine German and therefore is obviously different from Standard German. Its differences from Palatine German are minimal, however. There were all kinds of dialects depending on where the settlers came from; Pennsylvania German is just the biggest and long-lasting of them. 05:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)