''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod'' () is a series of books by Bastian Sick which deal in an entertaining manner with unappealing or clumsy use of the German language, as well as areas of contention in

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

, and

punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...

Origins

The books are collections of the author’s column 'Zwiebelfisch', which appeared from 2003 to 2012 in '' Spiegel Online''. Since February 2005 it also appeared in print in '' Der Spiegels monthly culture supplement. The column's title, literally 'onion fish', is a printers' term for a single character with an incorrect

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

in a block of text. The series consists of six volumes, all of which reached the top of the book sales lists, with the first volume selling more than 1.5 million copies within two years. The title, ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod'' () is a way of saying ''Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genitivs'' or ''Der Dativ ist des Genitivs Tod'', a reference to a linguistic phenomenon in certain dialects of German where a noun in

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive ca ...

is replaced by a

possessive adjective Possessive determiners are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they do not have the same syntactic distribution as ''bona fide'' adjectives. Examples in Engli ...

and noun in the

dative case In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this examp ...

(see

his genitive The his genitive is a means of forming a genitive construction by linking two nouns with a possessive pronoun such as "his" (e.g. "my friend his car" instead of "my friend's car"). The construction enjoyed only a brief heyday in English language, ...

Reception

In several German states, articles from the books have been used officially as teaching materials, and—according to Sick's foreword of August 2005, the series has been added to the set text list for the

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

Saarland Saarland (, ; ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in ...

. The material in the book series has been adapted into a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

, a

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

, a

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

and into

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sch ...

s. On the other hand, the linguists Vilmos Ágel, Manfred Kaluza and André Meinunger think that Sick's books are not useful for teaching German because they contain factual errors, often just deal with irrelevant nitpicking, and don't give sufficient proof of why something Sick deems wrong should be wrong.Vilmos Áge
Bastian Sick und die Grammatik. Ein ungleiches Duell
– Informationen Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 35. Jg, Heft 1, 2008, S. 64–84

Book titles

* ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod – Ein Wegweiser durch den Irrgarten der deutschen Sprache.'' Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 2004, (audio book: ) * ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod, Folge 2 – Neues aus dem Irrgarten der deutschen Sprache.'' Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 2005, (audio book: ) * ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. Folge 3 – Noch mehr aus dem Irrgarten der deutschen Sprache.'' Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln November 2006, (audio book: ) * ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. Folge 4 – Das Allerneueste aus dem Irrgarten der deutschen Sprache.'' Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 2009, * ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. Folge 5''. Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 2013, (audio book: ) * ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. Folge 6''. Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 2015,

DVD title

* ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod – Die Große Bastian Sick Schau.'' icSony BMG Music Entertainment GmbH, 2008, ASIN B000X1YDCC

Game titles

* ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod.'' KOSMOS, 2006, ASIN 3440690237 * ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod – Das PC-Spiel.'' (PC & Mac) United Soft Media Verlag GmbH, 2007, ASIN 3803228301

External links

Der Spiegel ‘Zwiebelfisch’ column (German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dativ Ist Dem Genitiv Sein Tod German books German grammar