User talk:Jchthys

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Again, welcome! JackPotte 10:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

escribe
is a term in geometry. Equinox ◑ 18:35, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. Somehow I didn't see the English section of that page. My bad.Jchthys (talk) 18:37, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Weihnachten
Hello. In my opinion your change of "can also be pluralized to refer" into "can also be treated as plural when referring" can be misunderstood: -Ikiaika (talk) 19:07, 14 April 2016 (UTC) I think that's better, thanks. Well, maybe the usage notes should be split, as to avoid confusion. Like:
 * 1) That could mean that "Weihnachten" (plural only) is used to refer to Christmases. But both "Weihnachten" (neuter) and "Weihnachten" (plural only) are used to refer to a single Christmas. "Weihnachten" (neuter) however also has a plural to refer to Christmases.
 * 2) That could mean that "Weihnachten", the plural of "Weihnachten" (neuter), is actually the singular used for a plural meaning, that the singular being "treated" as a plural. Like one could use "a Roman" to mean "all Romans" collectively. But "Weihnachten" is a real plural of "Weihnachten" (neuter). E.g. see "(der) Handwerker" which has the (unchanged) plural "(die) Handwerker". So it's not a matter of "treatment" but of "pluralizing", of making and using the plural.
 * Thanks for discussing! The problem with saying "pluralized" is that Weihnachten is already in the plural form – the plural form etymologically came first. I understand what you mean now, though. I decided to change it again to say "true plural"; does that work for you? — Jch  thys  21:51, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * So your change was actually about treating "Weihnachten", which originally is a plural, as a singular.
 * "Weihnachten" (plural only) originally is a plurale tantum.
 * The form "Weihnachten" (neuter) has a plural.
 * But I'm not sure about it. I'm not even sure about the gender of "Weihnachten" (singular). Nowadays it should usually be neuter. But dictionaries also mention masculine and feminine gender. Deutsches Wörterbuch (DWB) from the brothers Grimm has "weihnachten, m. f. n."; the Etymologisches Wörterbuch at DWDS has "Weihnachten [...] (schon vereinzelt im 14. Jh.) singularischen Gebrauch mit wechselndem Genus (m. f. oder n.)"). If the other genders can be attested, the usage note should be updated to mention them. And then it might make more sense to split it.
 * -Ikiaika (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * My hunch is that when Weihnachten is used as a "singular", it's still the plural form, but that it's actually treated as a proper name. Note that it doesn't take the article in that case. When it's used as what I called a "true plural", then, it's not that it's an inflection of a neuter noun, but perhaps reverting to the original plural idea. Unfortunately, German articles and adjectives have the same endings for all three genders in the plural, so we can't tell whether Weihnachten as a "true plural" is feminine or neuter. — Jch  thys  17:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)