Nicholas Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 12:41:57PM +0100, Steffen Mueller wrote: > > Nicholas Clark wrote: > > > In the gents toilets at K�ln/Bonn airport I found a vending > > > machine selling perl condoms. So I bought a box: > > > > > > http://www.ccl4.org/~nick/P/Condom.jpeg > > > > That's pretty funny, but maybe more so to people from outside > > Germany as "Perle" means "pearl". I suppose I needn't explain what > > that's to say in the context. > > That's roughly what I guessed, but why does the e get dropped for > Perlnoppen? Standard practice?
Yes. If you create a compound word in German, you normally loose a trailing vocal from the leading word. I think that's even one of the official German grammar rules, but I don't have a Duden (the official German dictionary) at hand. Best regards, Martin Stricker -- Homepage: http://www.martin-stricker.de/ Linux Migration Project: http://www.linux-migration.org/ Red Hat Linux 7.3 for low memory: http://www.rule-project.org/ Registered Linux user #210635: http://counter.li.org/ -- +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++ Bitte l�cheln! Fotogalerie online mit GMX ohne eigene Homepage!
