The niceties of German grammar
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Recently I came upon the following quotation from the Lutheran theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1905-1945):
As soon as I saw "gefährlicherer", I thought it must be a typo or a grammatical error, but that's how it's quoted everywhere, e.g., here:
"Deep Thought: Let's Talk About Dummheit"
h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition (7/6/24)
and here, here, here (p. 56)….
Since "gefährlicherer" is way beyond my humble German competence (the only comparative degree I know for "gefährlich" is "gefährlicher", I decided to look it up.
According to Wiktionary, "gefährlicherer" is the
- inflection of gefährlich:
Wiktionary even kindly provides an audo file of "gefährlicherer" spoken by a native / resident of Berlin (not a jam-filled doughnut).
So "gefährlicherer Feind" is grammatically correct German.
Here's how it is constructed:
gefährlich: the positive form of the adjective, meaning "dangerous"
gefährlicher: the comparative form, meaning "more dangerous"
gefährlicherer: an inflected version of the comparative, which is correct because it must agree in case, number, and gender with the noun it modifies
Tant pis!
Selected readings
- "commoner" (11/25/09)
- "geheuer und Ungeheuer" (3/24/25)
S Frankel said,
October 10, 2025 @ 9:26 pm
Doesn't seem weird to me but my German is more-or-less serviceable. Does "sicherer" ('more certain') strike you in the same way as gefährlicherer?
Victor Mair said,
October 10, 2025 @ 9:47 pm
No, because sicher just means "safe, secure", not "more safe, more secure". The comparative is sicherer or sichrer, superlative am sichersten.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sicher
Tom Ace said,
October 10, 2025 @ 9:53 pm
The real fun is when the adjective ends in -er to begin with,
e.g. lockererer Griff (looser grip).
Patrick said,
October 11, 2025 @ 1:13 am
Dies ist ein gefährlicher Hund.
This is a dangerous dog.
Dies ist ein gefährlicherer Hund.
This is a more dangerous dog.
Dieser Hund ist gefährlicher.
This dog is more dangerous.
I think there is another rule in play in addition to comparatives.
Dummheit ist ein gefährlicher Feind des Guten als Bosheit
Stupidity is a dangerous enemy of the Good than Malice
Thomas said,
October 11, 2025 @ 2:22 am
While the -ererer ending is something that can normally occur, I find it peculiar that in other context, German got rid of this repeating pattern. A person who wanders is a "Wanderer". Now female versions of many words are obtained by just adding the suffix -in. However, a female person who wanders is a "Wanderin". Why can we say sichererer but not *Wandererin?
Philip Taylor said,
October 11, 2025 @ 3:19 am
Clearly I am missing something — what is the significance of the parenthetic "(not a jam-filled doughnut)" ?
Colin Watson said,
October 11, 2025 @ 4:25 am
@Philip Taylor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_(doughnut)
Philip Taylor said,
October 11, 2025 @ 9:16 am
Ah. Thank you. Another food item I had not previously encountered, although the description ("a German jam doughnut with no central hole") did lead me to wonder into what the jam was inserted … I suspect that it meant "a spheroid, not a toroid", but the meaning was initially unclear.
Victor Mair said,
October 11, 2025 @ 11:03 am
JFK: "Ich bin ein Berliner"
=====
There is a widespread misconception that Kennedy accidentally said that he was a Berliner, a type of German doughnut. This is an urban legend which emerged two decades after the speech, and it is not true that residents of Berlin in 1963 would have mainly understood the word "Berliner" to refer to a jelly doughnut or that the audience laughed at Kennedy's use of this expression – if nothing else because this type of doughnut is called "Pfannkuchen" (literally: Pan cake) in Berlin and the word "Berliner" is only used outside of Berlin.
=====
David Marjanović said,
October 11, 2025 @ 12:02 pm
Yes. The first -er is the comparative, the second is nom. sg. m. indefinite.
Never seen or heard that one, but I bet it occurs in poetry and/or writings from certain parts of Germany into the 19th century.
There is: only attributive adjectives are inflected. Predicative adjectives are not, making them identical to adverbs and also making them look like English adjectives. So, the first -er is present in this example, but the second isn't.
This is not absolute; you can encounter that form.
Stress timing plays a role, too.
Whether the article is used in such cases varies, mostly regionally, within Standard German.
Coby said,
October 11, 2025 @ 1:26 pm
It's simply that German distinguishes between the attributive and predicative forms of adjectives. The former are inflected, not only for number and gender, but also for whether or not they are preceded by a definite article, while the latter has the same uninflected form as the adverb. So ein gefährlicher Mann, der gefährliche Mann, der Mann is gefährlich; ein gefährliches Tier, das gefährliche Tier, das Tier is gefährlich. And the inflection applies to the comparative and superlative as well, hence gefährlichere(r,s), gefährlichste(r/s).
Yves Rehbein said,
October 11, 2025 @ 2:11 pm
Gesundheit! Here's a similar effect in English:
common – communist – * the most communistest.
Michael Watts said,
October 11, 2025 @ 7:32 pm
It's clear that John F. Kennedy said "ich bin ein Berliner". The observation was made in America that this is idiomatic for referring to the food, and that "ich bin Berliner" is idiomatic for referring to citizenship, and wikipedia seems to support both claims.
Wikipedia is also very clear that "this" is an "urban legend" and has been debunked. But they're not clear on what exactly has been debunked. By a strict reading, the "legend" part of the legend is that there was widespread laughter in response to JFK's speech. But that wasn't even part of the legend as it was transmitted to me; that was limited to "JFK committed a minor grammatical error that is easy to overlook when the speaker is a foreigner".
After reading wikipedia's treatment, I still don't know whether it's idiomatic to say "ich bin ein Berliner" when claiming citizenship in Berlin.
David Marjanović said,
October 12, 2025 @ 7:36 am
I'm not sure if it's idiomatic in Berlin… but there are places where it is, and that's all specifically within Standard German, not the local dialects.