Talk:Knabe

Usage Notes

Is the usage info (datedness, rarity) true and complete? My mother referred to my father as alte Knabe. She was definitely not well-read in German. She was, however a native speaker of Letzebergisch (and French). (My father was fairly well read and came from Franconia.) Could this be rare and dated in mainstream German, but not in Letzebergish. Could it be used, especially colloquially, in other Germanic languages and dialects? DCDuring TALK 12:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

In my experience, it is dated but not rare. De.Wikt calls it "elevated/literary, dated, south German". The Duden calls it a litany of things: "dated, otherwise elevated/literary, officialese, Swiss, Austrian [... or else ...] slang, often joking". DWDS calls it "dated, south German, Austrian, Swiss, elevated/literary". Ngrams show that it's been declining since about 1930, when Junge became more common. "Alter Knabe" has somewhat different usage; taken literally, it is an oxymoron; it is (as de.WP and DWDS put it) a joking, affectionate term for a grown man. It has consistently constituted 1/100th of the uses of Knabe, and it has declined in a way matching Knabe. I will try to find out about Lëtzebuergesch usage. It's not used (except in quotations of German) on the Lëtzebuergesch WP. - -sche (discuss) 21:24, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the research and judgment. Indeed I thought of it as "a joking, affectionate term for a grown man" in the context of my mother's use of alter Knabe. It is a sweet memory of my deceased parents. DCDuring TALK 06:18, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

"Alter Knabe" is a fixed term that is still heard. There are probably some other contexts as well. But the information is correct inasmuch as "Knabe" could not be used anymore as a normal word for "boy", at least not in the north. Maybe in the south, but I actually doubt it. The "Deutsches Wörterbuch" said already in 1873 that: im gebrauch des lebens übrigens ist es jetzt wenigstens nicht heimisch, denn im nördlichen und mittleren Deutschland hat im hausdeutsch junge seine stelle, im südlichen bub, bue; ihnen gegenüber klingt knabe wie gesuchtes oder doch gewähltes hochdeutsch [...]. (In the use of everyday life, at least nowadays, it is not native because in northern and central Germany "Junge" takes its place in "house German" [i.e. probably, colloquial standard German], in the south "Bub, Bue". In comparison to them, "Knabe" sounds like contrived or at least polished standard German [...].) — This unsigned comment was added by 178.4.151.203 (talk).