Talk:scheiße

RFV discussion: August 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

scheiße

the given example has scheißekalt, and not an adverb scheiße. For the former compare Scheiße#Related terms and scheiß-. --2003:DE:3720:3758:8958:C46B:4F51:B0F0 11:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Struck because clearly widespread use. scheißekalt may be SOP. Fay Freak (talk) 12:09, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Additionally scheißekalt, megakurz and the like may be widespread misspellings (misspelt especially in formal language), because these spellings imply that the stress is on the first syllable, while it isn’t but the adjective is stressed. Hence it is clear it is an adverb. By the way, as an example for spelling, just search “scheiße besoffen”. But the CFI do not apply to spellings. Fay Freak (talk) 12:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Alternatively of course, based on the written-together spellings, one can have scheiße- too. But the stress argues against it being a prefix. And somewhere we need to describe the phenomenon of using the word for shit this way. Fay Freak (talk) 12:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Additionally it is to be remarked that we need to have scheiß as an indeclinable adjective, and scheiße is too one in attributive use. Das ist ein scheiße Kleid. Er hat einen scheiß Computer. (“He has a shit computer, he has a computer which sucks”). Er hat einen Scheißcomputer would mean he has a computer whereinto he shits, as Scheißhaus, and Scheißtyp is also written correctly as being not derived from this adjective use. Journalists usually write all, wrongly, indistinctly as compounds, because one does not learn how to write that S-word correctly.

What do the lemmings say? How do other dictionaries include it, and where do the official spelling rules cover it?

So far grammar is on my side. Fay Freak (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Er hat einen Scheißcomputer is unlikely to be interpreted as "He has a computer into which he shits"; it would be interpreted as "He has a fucking computer". Not necessarily a poor quality one, just one the speaker is showing hostility toward. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:23, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

If it were English, I'd say it was attributive use. The compound "shitpost" (along with a number of others) comes to mind.

It feels almost like it's the interjection which is changing into some kind of semantic-only particle when it's attached: it seems to lose all its syntactic properties and all that's left is a certain overtone or attitude. To use a strange analogy from the life sciences, there are certain deep-sea anglerfish where the tiny male attaches himself to the female and fuses with her to become almost like an appendage whose only function is to fertilize her eggs.

I hope I'm making sense- I don't really have time this morning to develop the thought further. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: It is funny that you say this—that there can be a “particle” that can lose all its syntactic properties. Not like it would have properties in the first place save by our assignment—part of speech are invented to shoehorn languages into their descriptions, for the unacquainted to hopefully get a quick overview, not essential properties of lexemes.

The IP however works on the dogma that in any given quote the part of speech of everything is clear and there cannot be alternative analyses—a square disputable claim.

If living speech is expressed in writing, preference is given to certain analyses indeed, that’s what many rules of German orthography are based on, more than in any other language I am aware of (or it’s just that I am most aware of the German one). But nothing prevents us from analysing the uses differently, assuming the spelling is a record of a sentence which does not have those tendential properties. Examples:

Scheiße, ist es kalt hier! (“Damn, it’s cold in hier!”) and Scheiße, bin ich blau! (“Damn, I am plastered!”) vs.

Scheiße ist es kalt hier! (“Damn it’s cold in hier!”) and Scheiße bin ich blau! (“Damn I am plastered!”)

I stress that these are phrases every German has heard — idiomatic ones for a phrasebook, so I have made up nothing, and something similar is the picture of English usage. Would the analysis as an interjection or as an adverb only depend on the comma? Not very convincing, considering also that we sanction Usenet quotes where anyone can spell as he likes, and no doubt this or similar sentences are written, presumably also in novels containing informal language. Or will he arbitrarily claim that the second spelling is a misspelling and can thus be disregarded? Which is also a weak view since the spelling was very deliberate and due to grammatical properties—too regularly and unironically occurring to be an “intentional misspelling”. The same way the space may or may not be there in es ist scheißekalt (“it is damn cold”), and as according to a general rule compounds and affixations are written together in German but adverbs are written apart we would have to be mighty sure that it is a compound or affixation if written together and mighty sure it is an adverb if not, but unfortunately I am not a machine to believe that.

But of course I expect him to join with the worst view, and not aligning with my views on what would quote anything, hence I decline to format quotes for this IP, it being not clear what this IP accepts as evidence in the end, and his request having the purpose of pushing a POV about its category rather than reasonably doubting the existence of an item per se, all framed from the beginning to become an undiscovered petitio principii where he appears to be the one to have been always right about his narrow and soulless reading of our criteria for inclusion. Fay Freak (talk) 00:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Yeah, this was only to give the general format, not having wholly worked out the grave fallacies the IP commits. At the page scheiß I have a more imaginable example: sein scheiß Haus (where one stresses at the end) and Scheißhaus (which exists as a word for toilet). You know that, when one chats and no teacher or similar corrector is looking at one’s fingers, one has to write the first one, whether with Haus or anything else and whether it be an adjective or adverb case.

I note also the elucidative Wiktionary entry for English piss (“attributive: an intensifier”). Fay Freak (talk) 00:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Reading de:tod-, I have learned that in German one has the part-of-speech category Präfixoid or Halbpräfix for this (and that, by the way, even for Old High German), a very rare term in English, there being seven hits on JSTOR for semi-prefix, on the level of an occasionalism. Heck. de.Wiktionary indeed has this as POS header, but there is no semi-hyphen to distinguish prefixes from semi-prefixes, and the spelling varies in use between writing together and apart too, so here we are in the dilemma. Fay Freak (talk) 01:23, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Like Langzeitstudie (lang +‎ Zeit +‎ Studie or Langzeit- +‎ Studie - cp. Category:German words prefixed with Langzeit- though the capital L might be questionable) does not attest *Langzeit, scheißekalt does not attest scheiße. So the example doesn't support the entry and the entry is questionable.

As for scheiß Computer vs. Scheißcomputer: Prescribed form is Scheißcomputer (cp. scheiß- and Duden: Scheiß-; see also Duden: scheiß-, Duden: schweine-, Schweine-, Duden: Riesen-). "scheiß Computer", if it exists, would be incorrect/proscribed/nonstandard (in a way similar to spellings with Deppenleerzeichen).

"Scheiße[,] ist es kalt hier": That does not bring up any results for me at GBC, and the variant without comma could simply be incorrect (Zeichensetzungsfehler). By the reformed rules as of 2018 (§ 79) both ways of spelling, with or without comma, should be possible for Ausrufe (“interjections”) and be a matter of emphasis.

--14:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

No, the spaced spelling can’t be “incorrect” as it is intentional and not anyhow humorous. It is deceptive to compare it with Deppenleerzeichen since such spellings are used by reason of thinking and not Deppentum, by conscious adaptation of the rules—misspellings are only spellings spelt against rules accepted by the person who writes them, not spellings adhering to different rulesets or rule interpretations, these are alternative forms. You yourself write at scheißekalt that scheiße kalt is “proscribed”? Who proscribes that spelling, other than just prescribing other spellings? Is there information indicating that German prefixoids should not be written like that? One perhaps says that adverbs should be written apart but that is because one has a category “semi-suffix” for this which Wiktionary lacks, and possibly does not need since it is a graphocentrist interpretation.

Likewise the variant without comma cannot be incorrect. You are contradicting yourself saying it is possible. And your whole spelling-centric argument is long-refuted codswallop. بِالْعُنْف (bi-l-ʕunf, “by force”) attests بِ (bi, “by, with”). How do we include the preposition if it never occurs in isolation?

Also the information in the Duden is obviously incorrect, in particular at the point Betonung. Combinations with scheiß- and Scheiß- are stressed on the word they are appended to, as also todmüde, hundsmüde and the like are stressed on /my/. Fay Freak (talk) 16:46, 24 August 2021 (UTC)