I'm afraid I don't understand how wherewithall relates to this. If you gave me another example of where über is used within a word and the meaning is changed, that would be helpful. Thank you for the Thode suggestion, I'll check into it JK D.L. MacLaughlan-Dumes wrote: > On Apr 15, 2009, at 12:15 PM, JK wrote: > >> I'm not sure why I'm getting a different result this time, but the >> engine at http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt >> now gives me "opposite" for gegenüber >> >> But it still gives me approximately for gegen and over for über. > > That's because the compound word now has a different combined meaning > not found in the two root words. This happens in English too (which > is Germanic language after all), e.g. "wherewithall". > >> This doesn't make any sense that the two words joined have changed the >> original meaning of both. > > The original meaning of the two separate words has not changed. > Combining them together does change the meaning of the new combined > word. It's a very common semantic phenomenon. > > If you plan to delve more deeply into German records and newspapers > I'd recommend investing in a paperback German-English dictionary. Any > good one will do; Ernest Thode's German-English Genealogical > Dictiomnary has been particularly helpful to me. Online translators > like Babelfish and Google's translation tools are not 100% reliable, > as you've seen. > > Regards, > D.L. MacLaughlan-Dumes > http://sakionline.net/familypage > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >