Home Gudgeon and gist Language Log The niceties of German grammar

The niceties of German grammar

Language Log 2025-10-11

Recently I came upon the following quotation from the Lutheran theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1905-1945):

Dummheit ist ein gefährlicherer Feind des Guten als Bosheit
[Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the Good than Malice]

As soon as I saw "gefährlicherer", I thought it must be a typo or a grammatical error, but that's how it's quoted everywhere, e.g., here:

"Deep Thought: Let's Talk About Dummheit" h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition (7/6/24)

and here, here, here (p. 56)….

Since "gefährlicherer" is way beyond my humble German competence (the only comparative degree I know for "gefährlich" is "gefährlicher", I decided to look it up.

According to Wiktionary, "gefährlicherer" is the

  1. inflection of gefährlich:
    1. strong/mixed nominative masculine singular comparative degree
    2. strong genitive/dative feminine singular comparative degree
    3. strong genitive plural comparative degree

Wiktionary even kindly provides an audo file of "gefährlicherer" spoken by a native / resident of Berlin (not a jam-filled doughnut).  

Your browser does not support the audio element.

So "gefährlicherer Feind" is grammatically correct German. 

Here's how it is constructed:

gefährlich:  the positive form of the adjective, meaning "dangerous" gefährlicher:  the comparative form, meaning "more dangerous" gefährlicherer:  an inflected version of the comparative, which is correct because it must agree in case, number, and gender with the noun it modifies

Tant pis!

Selected readings