I wondered if anyone could help explain to me why the phrase for ‘in broad daylight’ is ‘am hellichten Tage’ rather than ‘am hellichten Tage’. What does Tage mean in this context as opposed to ‘Tag’, and can they be used interchangeably?
I changed the title as you ask for linguistic information and not an error on the course (hopefully)
I guess the German expression is in the plural form.
Non-native speaker here…
I think the -e on the end of “Tag” is an old Dative construction. There were a lot of masculine and neuter nouns that used to take an “-e” in the Dative singular. This was particularly the case for single-syllable nouns, so e.g. dem Manne, dem Tage. It’s survived in a number of set expressions such as “am helllichten Tage”, “zu Hause”, “im Jahre 2017” etc.
By the way, don’t forget it’s a triple “l” for helllichten, too!
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As a native speaker, I can say that using “Tage” in “am helllichten Tage” is relatively old-fashioned. It is gradually replaced by “am helllichten Tag”, which should be more comprehensible for people learning German. The Duden uses “Tag” in its entry for “helllicht” (near the end of the entry).
Using “am helllichten Tage” has a more emotional, emphatic, concerned touch, while I’d reckon “am helllichten Tag” as more prosaic and matter-of-fact. But that is only a gradual difference. In both versions, the phrase expresses an (unpleasant) astonishment that something happened or was done “in broad daylight”.
EDIT: There are other phrases that (can) use time-related substantives with an old-fashioned “e”, for example “im Jahr(e) XXXX” (“in the year XXXX”). To say, for example, “der Verein wurde gegründet im Jahre 1956” (“the club was founded in the year 1956”) has a more emotional, maybe a bit grandiose, ring to it than the more matter-of-fact “der Verein wurde gegründet im Jahr 1956”.
EDIT: Another, not time-related example I just thought of: “Im Licht(e) der neuen Erkenntnisse”, “considering the new findings” (more literally, “in the light of the new findings”) works about the same. “Lichte” is more emotional, a bit grandiose than “Licht” in this context.
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The Plural of “Tag” is “Tage”, that’s correct. But in the phrase “am helllichten Tage” the “day” is in singular, as you can see from the “am” (short for “an dem”).
As German living in the UK for nearly 10 years now, with a foible for languages, here’s my two pennyworth:
Yes Tage is singular, and Dativ, and poetic. You can say “am hellichten Tag” as well, and this is equally “correct” (if somewhat less poetic!) – and the awful stylistically horrendous triple-l proliferation in hellicht only applies if you subject yourself to this disastrous Rechtschreibreform the German-speaking countries foolishly embarked on in 1996. In the wiki article you can read that because of the controversy surrounding the reform, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany had to state the obvious in 1998: that because there was no law governing orthography, outside the schools people could spell as they liked, including the use of traditional spelling! So these days you can write as you want (meaning old or new orthography), but it’s generally considered consistent if you stick to either new or old, not pick & mix. But there is no orthography police that will throw you into grammar jail if you do!!
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Thanks for the summary of the spelling reforms, Mathi80 - I can guess what side of the fence you’re on!
For English learners of German, I think it’s best to stick with the “official” version - Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage, which is a very comprehensive work, has a couple of paragraphs on the spelling reform followed by numerous examples, but the upshot is that learners are “recommended to adhere strictly to the new rules, as they are the only ones regarded as officially correct”. The book does however acknowledge that many people who finished their schooling before 2006 tend to stick to the old rules for private use.
For me it’s going to have to be “Eine Schneeeule saß auf eine Brennnessel und fraß eine Kammmuschel”.
I think the Memrise course marks the “double-l” as incorrect in this instance too, which took me a bit of working out!
what do you mean by “Hammer” as the “official” version? probaly the Duden Verlag/publishing house, author Peter Hammer? Duden is a private publishing house, which happens to (still) dominate the market… (as it happens, the Deutsche Germanistenverband makes fun of Duden rather regularly…)
if you want to find more “info” about the “official” language, search in google de “Institut für Deutsche Sprache” or something similar… there are several of them in DE, and some of them have extensive grammar/syntax/etc pages.
a very good site for advanced learners of German is http://www.belleslettres.eu/ (only for fluent people indeed, the site is not for those learning German as a foreign language…) Plenty of tutorials: grammar, vocab, style, etymology…
I probably didn’t word my comment very well. I meant that the book “Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage” recommends learning the “official” version of German - i.e. that which was finally settled on in March 2006. It states that in 1994/95 a set of reforms were agreed by countries where German is an official language and began to be introduced to schools in 1996 - for a transitional period thereafter both old and new spellings were permitted, but from 2006 only the “new” spellings have been regarded as correct for official purposes - but you probably know all that!
I do use Duden occaisionally, and had thought it to be the definitive version - why is it made fun of…?
I’ll have a look at the other site too, thanks, although I’m very much in the “Deutsche als Fremdsprache” camp.
Oh boy, the old “the reform is complete rubbish, killed the German language and is probably to blame for the bad weather, too” discussion… From my experience (and I’ve been using the German language as my native language for the last four decades), the Duden is mostly the accepted standard and reference. Of course it’s not the be-all and end-all, but what book could ever be that for a living language.
In my experience, most people who take time out of their day to “make fun of the Duden” are actually peeved that what the Duden considers correct today clashes with what they consider correct - which mostly is what they’ve learned thirty, fourty, fifty, … years ago and used ever since. I remember that I’ve been a bit peeved myself when the spelling of “Tips und Tricks” (“tips and tricks”) was changed to “Tipps und Tricks”, for example. But I’ve gotten over it since 
My advise for people learning “Deutsch als Fremdsprache” would be, when in doubt, stick to what the Duden says. Everything else tends to be a minority opinion with more or less credit to it. That of course isn’t true in every single case, but as a rule of thumb it works pretty well.
well, for example… many Germanists (including the one keeping the belleslettres) claim that “Serialisierung” of the type “mit schöneM, alteM Mobiliar” is a Duden invention/simplification… the history of the German language (and the sense of language of the educated native speaker) would ask for “mit schöneM, alteN Mobiliar” …(http://www.belleslettres.eu/content/deklination/mehrere-adjektive-beugen.php) etctetcetc
making fun of Duden: http://www.sprachlog.de/2013/09/02/sprachpanscher-und-sprachpinscher/ …
… each “national language” has its “guardians”, and given that - fortunately - there is no governmental institution to watch over the German language, the guardians fight each other rather often…
for those interested in exams, I’d say “ok, go Duden” - but be “prepared” to hear that Thomas Mann, according to Duden, did not write good German??? (in the sense that Mann would have probably never used the “mit schöneM, alteM Mobiliar”)
at school they taught me the Duden variant of the German language :), only to “row back” when the brothers Mann had to be read and analysed… My German is also the Duden German … well…
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Thanks everyone for your contributions. This was my first post on the forum and I’m grateful for your replies. I thought Tage couldn’t be a plural here so your explanation is most appreciated. Ironically, given the debate it caused, I hadn’t noticed my triple-L typo. I’ll certainly default to helllichten in future but am grateful for your introducing me to this debate.
I really enjoy this debate, as it brought us to the essence of language. Keep in mind that “correct” as decided by some bureaucrat in office is not necessarily the most eloquent and stylisticallly agreeeable. Letter triplets are rarely good style, even if they were required even before the orthographic reform when preceded or followed by another consonant (so it would be Schiffahrt with two but Schifffracht with three; in cases like the latter, I guess you could argue, you have an aggglomeration of consonants anyway so it doesn’t matter as much). So by all means, learn what’s correct but don’t forget that communicating powerfully and gracefully is more than spelling correctly – so think for yourself, denke selbständig (now “incorrect” but much better than selbstständig!!)
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