re: #81 mr.JA

I just double-checked with a colleague, and in this time and age schwarzer is ‘better’ than ‘neger’ - he said that you’ll never find ‘neger’ written in newspaper these days, but the he learned it as a normal word in school. However, he grew up in the DDR…

I would not be at all surprised to learn that what I learned in the 1980s is now vollkommen berholt. Now that I think about it, it may already have been on the cusp of changing when I left. But when I was learning German in the States, my teachers and professors made a point of teaching the same rule that you mentioned as being in effect in Dutch.

What I believe is still true is the reversal of sensitivities between Americans and Germans regarding sex/”gender” designations. Americans get upset if you call them a “waitress” or an “actress” - everybody’s a waiter and an actor now. In German, it’s quite the opposite - women insist on having the female designatress “-in” put after their job/profession. If you ever called a female actor a “Schauspieler” instead of a “Schauspielerin”, she would deck you - or take you to bed as a cute trophy foreigner.