Word of the Day

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Polish and Slovak mimo

I've already addressed Czech mimo here. As with most other products in the Czech Republic, there was a Slovak label I read today that caught my attention because it used mimo + the genitive case: ... mimo dosahu deti (... out of the reach of children). I guess it is standard in Slovak, but not in Czech, which requires the accusative case. Then it occurred to me that Polish also has mimo, but uses it with the meaning despite and after it the genitive case. Could it be that standard Czech's preference for the accusative case after mimo is an innovation and there are some holdovers where the genitive, as on that sign I wrote about, is still employed?

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