Talk:des Pudels Kern

RFM discussion: January–April 2018

 * Moved from RFD.

Bad entry title. Should not include the "des". SemperBlotto (talk) 16:46, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't speak German well enough, but I suspect it's necessary (Kern des Pudels, not Kern Pudels). --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 16:53, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should, just as the de-wikt entry de:des Pudels Kern does. It's a fixed expression that always includes the des. If you'd prefer, we can call it a phrase rather than a noun. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 16:57, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep, "des Pudels" is a genitive and the result of getting rid of the "des" would probably be unattested and grammatically incorrect or marginal. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:05, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

As for Tod: With the plural it can be used without article ("lieber tausend Tode sterben als ...") and in the singular it can be used with the indefinite article too ("eines schnellen, plötzlichen, ... Todes sterben"). With the article it's just parsed as (der) (Tod). -80.133.101.86 15:19, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm still hoping for more input from other German speakers. : was meint ihr? Does the "des" belong as part of the entry title? Is this a noun or a phrase? —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 09:36, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, it's an article, same as in English, so if you're stupidly strict, it's not part of the term, but I've literally never heard it used without the article, because the article is part of the quote and 'the core' is unique and definite by nature. I think it's similar to philosopher's stone/Stein der Weisen. If you completeness, they all should have the article, as nobody's ever looking for a philosopher's stone, but I could understand if we leave it out for lexical reasons too. After all, we don't list Tod as der Tod, although I can't think of a single German phrase that would naturally omit the article. Korn &#91;kʰũːɘ̃n&#93; (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The article isn't nominative (der = the) but genitive (des = of the), and it's parsed as (des Pudels) (Kern) not as (des) (Pudels Kern). Thus the article is part of the term.
 * The first sentence of de-wp's article Tod is: "Der Tod (...) ist das Ende des Lebens bzw. (als biologischer Tod bei einem Lebewesen) das endgültige Versagen aller lebenserhaltenden Funktionsabläufe." The second instance of the word in that sentence has no article. Would it be possible to say something like "Ich betrachte das als metaphorischen/symbolischen/wichtigen Pudels Kern", with an adjective modifying Kern taking the place of des? —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 15:23, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That would modify the Pudel, not the Kern. *(des blauen Pudels) (wichtiger Kern) or *(eines blauen Pudels) (symbolischer Kern) are grammatically possible, but in my experience it's - at least usually as a proverb or phrase - only (des Pudels) (Kern). -80.133.101.86 15:41, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * What the IP says. You can say what you wrote, and people will interpret it as (adjective Pudels | Kern) and never as (adjective | Pudels Kern). You could also place an adjective before Kern though. It's just really rare to modify a standing idiom. Korn &#91;kʰũːɘ̃n&#93; (talk) 16:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that's how such an expression would be interpreted, and that "des" is normally part of the lemma; browsing other dictionaries, they all also include the "des" (one even includes it in the title of the work: Des Pudels Kern: Sprichwörter erklärt). Idiomatic usage without "des" does exist, but is probably too marginal to be grounds for omitting it from the lemma form IMO, although I have put a redirect at [[Pudels Kern]] to cover it (I also put a redirect at [[Kern des Pudels]]), and we are right to have put links at [[Pudel]] and [[Kern]], for any non-native or unfamiliar speaker who tries to decompose the term into pieces. I see only one hit for "eines Pudels Kern", an 1841 Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft saying "einen solchen Geist [...] hat bereits unser grosse Göthe als Charakterbild für alle Zeiten in seinem Faust sich aus eines Pudels Kern entwickeln lassen", which is literal, not idiomatic. Likewise the two hits I see for "Kern eines Pudels" are an 1897 Neue Zeit with the observation that "damals entpuppte sich doch als Kern eines Pudels der leibhaftige Teufel" (also literal) and a 2013 Adrian Kübler book saying "der Kern eines Pudels kann doch nicht der Kern des Menschen sein". I see only five distinct hits for "als Pudels Kern", of which one is again literal ("Mephisto entpuppt sich erst als Pudels Kern") and the rest of which seem marginal (and half are from more than a century ago: "als Pudels Kern dieses Antrages", "sie will endlich als Pudels Kern: alle deutschen Stämme [...] vereinigt sehen"). - -sche (discuss) 17:26, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In fact, [[des Pudels Kern]] uses archaic syntax, the genitive preceding rather than following the head noun (which is now only done when the dependent is a proper name). The contemporary word order would be [[Kern des Pudels]]. Literally translated, this fixed phrase would be "of the poodle core", or more idiomatically, "the poodle's core". [[Pudels Kern]] is not completely ungrammatical, but a different construction (since it treats "Pudel" like a proper name: "Poodle's core"), and the fixed phrase is overwhelmingly cited as [[des Pudels Kern]] and sounds odd when used without "des". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:38, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't recall an entry on RFV that was as easy to cite as would be a Philosopher's Stone; a Google Books search produces a number of hits. ,,das also war des lers, ein Scolarzimmer und ein Pudels Kern“ shows up on Google Books, once, and has a number of Google hits, including one that might hit CFI. My German's pretty rudimentary, but it does seem marginally attestable with indefinite articles.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:36, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The keyword there is "marginally", as I opine above. I think the lemma should include des, but I've put redirects and pointers in all the marginal des-less (desolate?) places someone might look. - -sche (discuss) 20:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Had you actually opened the book, you would have seen that "ein Pudels Kern" is not actually in it. Korn &#91;kʰũːɘ̃n&#93; (talk) 23:08, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep as is. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 20:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Based on the extensive discussion, I'd like to close this as "not moved, but with a redirect added from the other form". - -sche (discuss) 01:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Not moved. - -sche (discuss) 15:16, 19 April 2018 (UTC)