Constance L. Lieber

Since I am in Switzerland this month, I have been reading books on German grammar. No, that is not like reading the dictionary. Bastian Sick has written a series, Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod, volumes 1 through 4. Besides being informative, the books are hysterical, as the author leads the unsuspecting reader through the morass of German grammar on topics as (seemingly) boring as whether to choose dative or genitive case (yawn) or as (apparently) interesting as the prevalence of American English words and phrases in contemporary German. Do you know what that thing that you put between your groceries and those of the person in front of you is called? I didn’t either, but Bastian Sick does. Can grammar be fun? Oh, yes. Reading these books has made me think of the way language changes over the years. One example I can think of in English is how the word “said” is being replaced by “goes” or “went,” as in: “I asked my friend to the movies tonight and he went, ‘I’m busy, how about tomorrow?’ Then I go . . . .” Or, in German, I think of the permutations in the use of the preposition “wegen” (because of). When I was young, I said “des Kindes wegen” (because of the child). Twenty years later, it became “wegen des Kindes.” And over the past thirty years, the case has changed to dative, as in “wegen dem Kind.” These are only two of countless other examples. If you read German, read Bastian Sick!