Rhetorical, just FYI. I’m an American in Germany and I’ve literally never met a native German speaker who wasn’t a linguistics professor who didn’t say “rethoric” though, so it’s not a big mistake at all. I do wonder if there was a misprint in a popular textbook or something though, because it’s weirdly consistent, even more so than I would expect from a word with a silent (in German) h somewhere.
It’s a lot more unusual to have an h after an r than an h after a t, even in German. So if you vaguely remember there’s supposed to be an h somewhere, it intuitively makes more sense after the t.
In German, “th” is uncommon (non-existent?) in words that aren’t overtly borrowed from Latin/Greek, so you get overcompensation like “Ethymologie”. “Rhythmus” trips me up every time.
Yeah, that’s definitely a reason for it, but it’s always this word. I don’t recall a German saying ethymology or rhytmic, but this is probably the most common mistake I’ve noticed among C1-C2 English speakers here. The other one might be German mtg players saying “viscera” with the accent on the e, but that’s probably because of a popular YouTuber who influenced local game store culture.
This is the first time in my life I’ve seen it spelled “rethorical” and I’ve never heard it said that way. I’m in a particularly stupid part of the US but I’ve travelled most of the country.
Do you hang out with a lot of native German speakers? They’re the ones who do it ime, not native English speakers, and probably not nonnative speakers who live in anglophone countries for a while or who went to anglophone schools.
Rhetorical, just FYI. I’m an American in Germany and I’ve literally never met a native German speaker who wasn’t a linguistics professor who didn’t say “rethoric” though, so it’s not a big mistake at all. I do wonder if there was a misprint in a popular textbook or something though, because it’s weirdly consistent, even more so than I would expect from a word with a silent (in German) h somewhere.
It’s a lot more unusual to have an h after an r than an h after a t, even in German. So if you vaguely remember there’s supposed to be an h somewhere, it intuitively makes more sense after the t.
In German, “th” is uncommon (non-existent?) in words that aren’t overtly borrowed from Latin/Greek, so you get overcompensation like “Ethymologie”. “Rhythmus” trips me up every time.
Yeah, that’s definitely a reason for it, but it’s always this word. I don’t recall a German saying ethymology or rhytmic, but this is probably the most common mistake I’ve noticed among C1-C2 English speakers here. The other one might be German mtg players saying “viscera” with the accent on the e, but that’s probably because of a popular YouTuber who influenced local game store culture.
This is the first time in my life I’ve seen it spelled “rethorical” and I’ve never heard it said that way. I’m in a particularly stupid part of the US but I’ve travelled most of the country.
Do you hang out with a lot of native German speakers? They’re the ones who do it ime, not native English speakers, and probably not nonnative speakers who live in anglophone countries for a while or who went to anglophone schools.
I’m sorry, I misunderstood.