"Robi" wrote: > if I use E-Mail in german, I (personally) use "Das E-Mail" and not > "Die E-Mail" unless it's plural. And in the plural form, I would use > E-Mail and not E-Mails, where again E-Mails would be the "Genitiv" > meaning "Die Empfaenger der E-Mails" or "Der Absender des E-Mails". It is my understanding that English "mail" as well as German "Post" in its original meaning hardly can have a plural - unless there are actually different mailing systems. But to be honourable, when did you hear the plural "Posten" (or "mails") in this sense last time? In both languages there's a tendency to shorten "e-mail message" resp. "E-Mail-Nachricht" to a simple "e-mail" or even "mail" which, in this new sense, obviously has a very common plural. It is my understanding that this is not yet widely accepted as a formally correct construction in both languages. Until now, this new, informal use of "mail" usually is substituted in written style, though I have little doubt that it will finally gain acceptance. Interestingly, there is no tendency to use English "post" or German "Post" in this way. Another question is the grammatical genus of "Mail" in German. There is no general rule, but often foreign words either take over the genus from the most obvious translation (even if it is wrong) or by similarity. Sometimes the original foreign genus is preserved, however this generally does not apply to English words. In current German you find both "die Mail" and "das Mail". There seems to be a strong tendency towards "die", apparantly influenced by "die Post". Until now I'd regard both versions to be correct (but to tell the truth, except for semi-literate teachers I met not many people who believe that English nouns stay neuter in a German context). Aren't we a little OT now? Gerd _______________________________________________ SpamCop-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://news.spamcop.net/mailman/listinfo/spamcop-list
