http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/...story/16811750

The story is all about political correctness, and says the government want to stop using the word "Fussgängerstreifen" (I'm guessing because Fussgängerstreifen refers to males and not females?), and want to use 'Zebrastreifen' instead.

By the way, this is slightly out of date. The report dates from 2010.

It's so wonderful that we don't have any bigger problems. But what other goals would a red/green governement come up with these days?

Still, only the Swiss kids will believe, zebras are black-yellow - and they can't even be disabused in the zoo of Bern as they don't have any zebras either.

Still, I bet after the 7 years since the article they're still called Fussgängerstreifen.
omtatsat - no money left for todays news?

Well the truth is that Fussgänger don't have stripes.
But Zebras do. So Zebrastreifen is technically correct

"Deutsche Sprache - schwere Sprache", the stripes do not refer to the "Fussgänger" but the thing on the ground. As it has several stripes according to you one of these passings would have to be "die Fussgängerstreifen", not "der Fussgängerstreifen".

And zebras are a protected species, not to be walked on So if you insist on Zebrastreifen, please avoid stepping on the yellow bits of that yellow-striped-zebra that no doubt is an even rarer species. (And the same by car - like every intelligent bikerider already does )

While this is fun and could be carried on for ever - German is like that - I kind of got the impression the thread has lost it's cause?

If you must use yellow paint, Tigerstreifen would be more appropriate.

as streets are generally dark grey, Wespenstreifen might be better

Psychologically not good. Being highly allergic to their stings I would never stop for a pedestrian on it again.

Tigerentestreifen?

in Germany I think they use black and white-hence Zebra and in oder not to insult the Zebra in Switzerland they call it Fussgängerstreifen which is strange because pedestrians dont have stripes or do they?

Nope. I've seen in on telly so it must be true.

(FTW: Biene Maja and her friend Willi from a famous children's comic series)


Now, back to reality. Indeed Zebrastreifen in Germany are white (on the black asphalt). Chances are the Swiss simply adopted that word, oblivious of or intentionally ignoring the different colors.

You really should listen when people explain things to you.

Fussgänger is short for "Streifen [auf der Strasse] für Fussgänger", the core term or subject is Streifen, not Fussgänger; pedestrians with stripes would be called Streifenfussgänger, to use these two words.

The principle's the same for every compound substantive:
- an Autorad is a wheel intended to be mounted on your car
- a Radauto would either be a car made of wheels or a car where wheels are of particular importance, which would require that wheels are unimportant in other cases. For instance Radpanzer (a tank rolling/running on wheels) vs Kettenpanzer (a tank running on chains, the typical one).

- a Steuerrad is a wheel for steering
- a Radsteuer would be a tax on wheels

usw. usf. etc. pp. - ad nauseam!

You know, language is quite logical.
But obviously logic is not everybody's favourite subject

it's called Fussgängerüberweg in Germany. not Zebra.

Strassenhinundherüberquerungsstreifen.

Come on people it's German, any noun used in an official capacity that's less than 30 characters in length just doesn't cut it.

That is exactly what me and my daughter say!

So according to your logic, the crossings are now for zebras and not people?

When you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO THINK ABOUT IT NOR OTHER IMPORTANT PROBLEMS AND YOU NEED TO JUSTIFY THAT YOU ARE WORKING...

Huh?

Zebrastreifen describes the stripes, not their purpose.

"Magischer Autoabwehrbereich" would be more fitting for how some Zurich pedestrians use the crossings...

This freaking "gender neutral language" thing is annoying me - and I'm meant to be benefitting from it! Well, no, it does not help, because it seems so petty and entitled, so it becomes one of the things associated with "feminist issues", totally devaluing other, more important sticking points. Whether it's "Weltherrschaftsinhaber" or "Weltherrschaftsinhaberin", I still feel qualified for the job, ovaries or no ovaries. That was I was raised and I suspect that this is the only way to sort this out, to make it self-evident by how kids are brought up. I will never forget my "almost would have been" MIL's utter shock and disdain at my readiness to help do "typically male" tasks like repair and build things.

Mind you, the whole Sapir-Whorf language influencing how we think business clearly has some merit. We had a lecturer at uni that would give us an academic paper written in German where the female form was used as standard and I vividly remember how much I struggled with it. It just seemed weird and unnatural and it felt laboured and unnecessary. But then one of the chaps in the seminar piped up that he would find it offensive to be spoken about in the female form, realised that he was in the minority and then mumbled something about "it's just confusing" when challenged as to why it was offensive to him.

The Swiss, being a little bit slow to make changes, probably copied the Austrian's love of yellow paint for road markings.

When I lived in Bavaria they assured me the Austrians chose yellow paint against the German's white choice, to help their Winter snow clearing workers.

These poor chaps were never achieving their work bonus as they wasted time trying to clean the white markings from the roads. Once the Austrian highways management changed to yellow paint they were all much happier, and the roads were cleared quickly.